Too black for IPL?

Interesting and astonishing news broke out from the Indian Premier League regarding complaints from two cheerleaders who were racially discriminated for being black. Dancers, Ellesha Newton, 22, and Sherinne Anderson, 25, both, from the UK, claim they were stopped from going on stage and abused by an Indian organiser ahead of a match involving the Kings XI Punjab in Mohali.

The Sun newspaper reported that Ellesha, from Islington, North London, said “An organiser pulled us away. He said the people here don’t want to see dark people. The n ***** word was used and they said they only wanted beautiful white girls.”

Sherinne of Hayes, West London, said “This kind of thing has never happened to us – not in Europe, not here, nowhere.”

The two women are from a troop of twelve dancers hired by Fierce Performance Productions (who have offices in London and Mumbai) for the King’s XI Punjab team. The actual incident took place about a month ago and surfaced after they spoke to the Calcutta Telegraph newspaper.

It’s not clear if they have made any formal complaints to the IPL board or the BCCI. At a press conference in Mumbai and they once again made claims that they were racially discriminated and not allowed to be part of the Mohali team because of the colour of their skin.

At the conference, Ellesha said “In the first match at Mohali in a group of mixed dancers we were the darkest. We were the only ones led off the ground at the first match and we believe it’s because of our colour. We were allowed to dance later and we were really upset but we danced because that’s what we had come there to do. Again in the second match we were allowed to dance but after that we were not allowed to dance and we have not heard from Wizcraft since then.”

Sherinne said “I don’t want to say much except that I really am not happy with all this and I believe it was because of my skin colour.”

A spokesperson for Wizcraft said “Our employees are trained to deal with our international clients. If there had been any racial discrimination, I would have received a complaint. But I know nothing of it.”

So, yet another IPL story hits the headlines for the wrong reasons and it would be interesting to see if the officals are actually reprimanded for their involvement in this disappointing state of affairs. Evidently, not giving the IPL or Indian chivalry something to boast about.