Black Caps accused of racism

The Antigua Sun newspaper has accused unnamed New Zealand players in a frontpage headline article of making racist remarks to staff at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.

The newspaper article said some New Zealand players abused employees of the Goddard Catering Group using the ‘N’ word before their first Super Eight match against the West Indies last Friday.

New Zealand team manager Lindsay Crocker strongly denied the allegation but said it had been investigated with the International Cricket Council operations director Michael Hall.

Crocker told the New Zealand Press Association that “we became aware of a rumour circulating among the catering that there was a racially based comment made in the players’ lounge as everyone was assembling. We talked to the catering staff and we quickly found there were three or four people in the room at the time. They weren’t able to tell me who they were.”

“They weren’t sure if they heard it accurately, they didn’t hear any other comments and the comments weren’t directed at the catering staff. It became clear to Michael and myself there was no great substance to this. There was no complaint or allegation from staff whatsoever,” said Crocker.

A spokesman for the catering company confirmed this saying he was unware of any complaints made by the staff following the event.

Crocker went onto say “it was an enormous surprise to see those rumours have been embellished the way they were by the Antigua Sun newspaper and based on a rumour which is utterly inaccurate.”