South African and Australian cricket authorities are horrified at a former Australian test player's use of the k-word and derision of Muslims in a racist rant on the first day of the test series between the two countries.
And Greg Ritchie drew former South African player Kepler Wessels into the row when he told an audience of about 250 during lunch at the Brisbane Cricket Ground: "Hey, Kepler, you're not going to call this lot k*****s today, are you?"
An upset Wessels yesterday denied he was present when Ritchie said this, and labelled the comments "disgraceful".
Ritchie made the comment during an anecdote about the Frank Worrell Trophy series between the West Indies and Australia in 1983/84 in which both Ritchie and Wessels played for Australia. It is unclear what the substance of the anecdote was.
Ritchie's comments were received with raucous laughter by his audience and could be heard over public address system loudspeakers near the cricket ground's dining room. During the speech Ritchie dropped several more bombshells, including offensive comments about Muslims, and said of ex-Pakistan captain and cricket great Imran Khan: "He's an absolute knob is Imran Khan. That's the only way to describe him."
Ritchie said: " I've got nothing against the Muslim people. Just this morning I had to try and stop three little Muslim boys trying to break the lock on my car boot. I had to say: 'Shut up! You're in there for a reason'." As the crowd roared with laughter Ritchie appeared to realise he had crossed a line, saying: "You can't say that kind of thing, can you?"
On Pakistan he said: "There's a place in Pakistan called Lahore. There weren't many of them [whores] around when we were there in 1992, I can tell you."
The team's manager, Mohammed Moosajee, told the Sunday Times: "If that is what was uttered, it is both disappointing and despicable for someone to make these racist comments."
Wessels, who is in Brisbane as part of SuperSport's commentary team covering the series, yesterday threatened to take legal action over the comments. "That's a disgraceful, offensive and libellous comment to make," he said.
"It's certainly not what I'm about and everyone who knows me will know that. I have no idea what he might be referring to - I haven't even spoken to him since the early 1980s."
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
The word kaffir, sometimes spelled kaffer or kafir, is an offensive term for a black person, most common in South Africa and other African countries. Generally considered a racial or ethnic slur in modern usage, it was previously a neutral term for black southern African people.
Kentucky fried chicken, apparently we're not allowed to hint at any link between black people and fried chicken.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
The word kaffir, sometimes spelled kaffer or kafir, is an offensive term for a black person, most common in South Africa and other African countries. Generally considered a racial or ethnic slur in modern usage, it was previously a neutral term for black southern African people.
