Pakistan-origin administrator Nasa Hussain helps South Asian community push back on racism in Bradford League

Nasa explains the complexities of mediating conflicts between players with different upbringings, cultures and sensibilities. What Bradford and Yorkshire are dealing with now, is what T20 franchise leagues having teams with players from across the world would face in the future.

The Bradford-born Pakistan origin administrator uses an urdu word to touch upon the origin of many brown vs white on-field confrontations. “We (those from sub-continent) are jazbaati people, we are emotional and passionate. We can’t accept anybody saying anything against our religion, culture, colour and our families,” he says. “Take the common uses of the MF word here. For the locals it might not be that big a deal but you and I can’t accept it. We come from a culture where our mothers are our absolute pride and joy. We are not going to accept somebody saying MF.”

During his playing days, Nasa was a reputed Bradford league all-rounder. It was the time India’s VVS Laxman and Pakistan’s Mohammad Yusuf were regular club players. Nasa’s life changed when at 17, he lost his father. Burdened with responsibilities, he was forced behind a taxi wheel for the next 20 years. Though, he stayed connected to the game, as a part-time administrator and a full-time cricket romantic.

Being on the road for long hours, regularly interacting with cricketers of every community, Nasa, has a deep understanding of Bradford’s complex multi-cultural society. The diverse demography of the region makes it a melting pot. Those with South Asian origins form 35 to 40 per cent of the population. The ones who came here from Pakistan are in majority but the Indian diaspora too is sizeable. Over the years, the South Asians have asserted their presence, stood up for equality, in these parts.

“The present-day society is different from the one we grew up in. Back then, we (his generation of British Asians) would accept things. If someone passed a derogatory comment, we wouldn’t react. That is not the case any longer,” says the man with a sagely demeanour and deep voice.

In 2018, a Pakistan-born Brit player, Azeem Rafiq, famously reacted and all hell broke loose. Rafiq complained of institutional racism at Yorkshire Cricket Club. This made national and international headlines. Rafiq said he didn’t get halaal meals at games, his religious practices were mocked and that once the former England captain and Yorkshire player Michael Vaughan told him “… there are too many of you lot. We need to do something about it.”

The matter reached the parliament, the English board was forced to react, Yorkshire lost international games and heads rolled. The case crawled, the old order dug their heels but in 2021, finally winds of change would hit Yorkshire. A new framework with emphasis on equality, diversity and inclusion would be put in place.

‘Fight racism by reporting it’

Nasa is also part of the change. He holds roadshows to explain how racism episodes can be wiped out from cricket or at least get nipped in the bud. “Report it and trust the system,” – that’s the crux of Nasa’s sermons. “You fight racism by reporting it. Don’t retaliate. Don’t start a fight over it. You just have to play clever. I’m a big believer that you learn as you go along.”

The learnings, that Nasa talks about, come from history. “I’ll give you the analogy of how the English work and how the colonial world used to work. They used to say things, walk away, and since we are jazbaati people we would end up fighting. Then they’d say, ‘look at these animals’,” he says.

He has seen such situations on cricket fields. Some time back, he was to pass a verdict on a case where the batsman had walked towards the bowler with a raised bat. The batsman argued that he was reacting to a racist comment and he was merely talking to him.

“Nobody will remember what the bowler has told you, what everybody will remember will be the person who walks down the pitch with a raised bat. The right way to deal with racist talk on the field is to report it. Now we’ve got people, like myself and others, who are on board. It is our duty then to take that further and say, okay, not acceptable,” he says.

Nasa is the right man, at the right place. The Park Avenue ground that he is in-charge of is more than a 100 years-old. Few years back, it went under redevelopment and a magnificent stand-on Dome, a giant transparent tent-like structure with arched roof, came up. This would make cricket an all-year sport with local South Asian kids crowding the venue on most days.

The ground has a striking backdrop of Bradford’s Grand Mosque with bottle green dome and minarets. On Sundays when the game of two South Asian Leagues, each with close to 35 teams, are played here, the sights, sounds and smells aren’t too different from a game at Lahore or Old Delhi. “99 percent of players in these leagues are from the sub-continent, there might be an occasional white player,” says Nasa.

A popular cricket website in these parts, Yorkshire Cricket, paints a vivid picture of a game at Park Avenue featuring an Indian club Interlink. “The Indian food on offer today was sizzling away on a row of barbeques with chicken fillets covered in spices, burgers and homemade salsa…. Families bring dishes made at home so the variety is never-ending … the samosa chaat was incredible … Spinner Jay Rajpurohit’s mother had made them. Crunchy, sweet with spicy chickpeas.”

These scenes are in total contrast to a county that had a long-standing rule of allowing only Yorkshire-born Britishers to play for them.So has cricket in Yorkshire changed after the racism storm? “You have to do things slowly. When you turn the Titanic, it takes time,” he says.