In light of recent events in the world BCEW & BBS Cricket wish to make the following heart felt statement.
There is no room in blind cricket for any kind of discrimination, direct or indirect. We are absolutely opposed to anyone being treated unfairly or being physically, verbally or emotionally abused due to their race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, age, religion, disability, or for any other reason (see ‘Protected Characteristics, Equality Act 2010). Whether they are a player, a coach, an umpire or scorer or a spectator anyone should be free to enjoy our sport without fear of harassment or discrimination.
Whilst we are pleased that these incidents are rare in our sport that isn’t good enough, we are determined to stamp out discrimination entirely & would urge any club to act severely if one of their players displays any of these behaviours.
We would also urge any player who experiences any form of discriminatory behaviour during a match to immediately report it to one of the umpires, or if they are not comfortable doing this so publically to instead do it during the tea break or at the end of the game.
It is a requirement of participation in blind cricket that every club has a welfare or safeguarding officer & all of these officers hold an ECB DBS certificate, so if anyone experiences any form of discrimination other than during a match these are the people to contact.
If we all play our part we can eradicate all forms of discrimination from blind cricket, being visually impaired all of our players suffer from enough discrimination in day to day life, so we should all work together to ensure that nobody involved in our game suffers further whilst taking part in sport.