Former South Africa batsman Ashwell Prince opened up on racism within his country and its cricketing set-up, stressing racial equality and its acceptance is still a distant dream, many years into the political end of the apartheid regime.
Prince, in a series of tweets, also cited examples from his playing days when the South African team failed to address the instances of hate some of its players faced on the basis of colour and the blaming of the transformation policy whenever the side has found itself in trouble.
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"The system is broken and has been for some time in our beloved SA, both in society and in sport. We return from isolation and we say to the world, look at us, we're back, oh, by the way, there's still no black people who can play the game, but we brought a few along," tweeted the 43-year-old, who played in 119 international games for South Africa.
"Some Proteas fans might have been shocked and disappointed by what they've read on social media this week. Truth be told, well at least for the 10 years that I'd spent there, there had never been any UNITY! Australia 2005, a number of us encountered racist incidents on the boundary."
"When we brought this to the attention of the leadership at lunch, we were told, 'ah it’s only some people in the crowd, not the majority, let’s get back out there.' 2007 WC semifinal 60/6 absolutely blown away by Aus, who’s to blame, TRANSFORMATION. Absolutely 0 ownership," he added.
Prince became the latest to open up on the issue of racism, taking strength from the resolve shown by people in their protest following the killing of an Afro-American, George Floyd, after being kneeled on his neck in the custody of a white policeman in the USA on May 25.
Players from England and the West Indies showed their support to the 'Black Lives Matter' movement by kneeling down with their hand raised ahead of the first Test of their series in the UK on Wednesday (July 8).
Their act inspired South African pacer Lungi Ngidi, who said the Proteas will definitely be discussing a way of meaningfully echoing the sentiment.
For which, Ngidi was disappointingly criticised by a few of the white South African cricketers of the past, but crucially found support from the CSA Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith, and the wider fanbase.
Prince's comments perhaps came in response to the way Ngidi was criticised when he was only championing the cause of human equality.
