In a historic match that marked the resumption of cricket in the post-pandemic era, West Indies pulled out a terrific victory to go 1-0 up in the three-match series.
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement provided extra motivation to the visitors to beat England, reckons former West Indies skipper Darren Sammy.
While featuring on a Sky Sports podcast, Sammy said, “When you have a movement for black lives, and you have a black team come to England — with everything that’s going on — that creates extra motivation.”
The former all-rounder also mentioned Michael Holding’s four-minutes monologue delivered a few days ago.
“You heard Jason Holder say that listening to Mikey (Holding), he felt it in his veins. And the decision to come over to England and play – there is something special about playing in England that sees West Indians want to rise, and get extra motivated,” remarked Sammy.
The BLM movement had gained a lot of traction after a black man in the USA was murdered mercilessly by a police organisation.
Since cricket doesn’t happen in a vacuum, the need to tackle systemic injustices and racism prevalent in the game has gained prominence in recent days.
“The whole scenario of this Test match, the significance of cricket being back, what it meant to see a black team on TV after this time where sport has not been played, that provided extra motivation for the West Indies,” said the two time T20 World Cup-winning captain.
Sammy further expressed his displeasure over criticism of South African speedster Luigi Ngidi after the latter remarked that South African cricketers should take a stand on the BLM movement.
“The fact that some past players have an issue with Lungi Ngidi stance on #blacklivesmatter movement is actually the reason why we are still here today saying black lives matter. Smfh #standupbrother we here with u (sic),” Sammy tweeted recently.
