If You Play For England, We Will Shoot You: Ex-Allrounder Phillip DeFreitas Shares Scary Experience Of Racism

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter campaign, a number of cricketers have come out to state that racism exists in cricket too. Unlike other games, racism is perhaps not very prevalent in the gentlemen’s game but there is no denying that it exists in the game.

In the recent past, the likes of Chris Gayle, Daren Sammy, Michael Carberry have revealed that they faced racism in the game. And now former England allrounder Phillip DeFreitas has joined the bandwagon too. The former international has revealed that he was warned he would be shot if he played for England.

The 54-year-old DeFreitas, who took 140 and 115 wickets in 44 Tests and 103 ODIs respectively for England, said the multiple death threats that he received affected his international career as he couldn’t focus on cricket.

“I received hate letters from the National Front – it’s not only once, I received that two or three times, saying ‘If you play for England, we will shoot you’,” Phillip DeFreitas said in a Sky Cricket Podcast.

“I had police looking after my house. I had a sponsored car with my name on it and I had to remove that. So can you imagine me driving down to London? I’m in a hotel two days before a Test match at Lord’s and I’m thinking ‘do I play or don’t I? Am I going to have a sniper?

“How can I focus on playing cricket for England with all that but with my determination, I would not allow those people to beat me ever,” he added.

Phillip DeFreitas, who played for England between 1986 to 1997, further said that he was left on his own in his fight against racism.

“I had no help, I had no support; I had to deal with that all on my own, it hurts quite a lot. I remember going home to my Mum and saying ‘I don’t feel like I belong there’. But I’m proud of what I achieved,” he said.

He went on to say that the colour of his skin also made things tougher for him in the game. The former cricketer, who made his debut at the age of 20, said he “always felt he had to be twice as good as a white person”.

“There was that feeling where you felt you were just on your own all the time. People used to say ‘why don’t you get involved’, ‘why don’t you be more with the team’. You felt lonely, you felt all on your own. It was really tough.

“To have Gladstone Small and Chris Lewis playing for England was fantastic – it made you feel a bit better, but never secure. I never felt welcome; I always felt like every game was my last game. I was desperate to play for England and that kept me going,” he said.

Defreitas said he did not stand up against racism during his playing days as he was afraid of losing his place in the team. He believes the current England team has the opportunity to support and send a strong message against racism.

“I wish I was able to come out and stand up for what I believed when I played, and the reasons why I didn’t was because I was always afraid that I’d never play for England again or that I’d be seen as a trouble-maker,” he said.

“The guys now have a great opportunity to stand up, be counted, and send the message out because this is going on and people are supporting them. I never felt I had that support. It was a scary place back then,” he added.

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