NEW DELHI, June 9: An old social media post by India pacer Ishant Sharma lent credence to former West Indies captain Darren Sammy�s allegation that a racist nickname was used to address him during his IPL stint with Sunrisers Hyderabad for which he is now demanding an apology.
The two-time T20 World Cup-winning captain, while commenting on the protests over African-American George Floyd�s death in the US, had spoken about being called �Kalu� while he was in India. �Kalu� is a derogatory word to describe black people.
Sammy said having understood the meaning only now, he feels disappointed with his teammates, who addressed him by that nickname during his 2013-2014 stint with SRH.
One of them could be Ishant, who had shared a group picture also featuring Sammy, on May 14, 2014, using �Kalu� to identify the West Indian in it. The same year, even Sammy called himself �Kalu� in a social media post to offer birthday wishes to VVS Laxman � the SRH mentor at that time.
�I was listening to Hasan Minhaj (Indian-American comedian and actor) talking about how some of the people in his culture view or describe black people,� Sammy said in his latest Instagram post.
�...I was angry after listening to him describing a word that they use to describe black people, which he was saying is not in a good way and it was degrading.
�Instantly I remembered when I played for Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2013 and 2014, I was being called the exact same word that he described,� he added.
Sammy demanded an apology from his teammates, asking them to reach out to him.
�All those who used to call me that, you guys know yourselves... Reach out to me, let�s have a conversation. Because, if it was in any way, shape or form what Minhaj said it meant, I�m very disappointed,� he said.
�I will be messaging those people. You guys know who you are. I must admit, at the time in which I was being called that, I did not know what it meant,� he added. � PTI
