New Delhi: Former England captain Nasser Hussain has said that he was lucky enough to have been brought up in a white-ish middle-class family in a multi-racial society.
Hussain also said that he played his cricket in a multi-cultural club-like Essex that ensured that he experienced very little racism.
"I encountered very little racism at Essex. Growing up as a young boy in Ilford having been born in India and having a surname of Hussain and the first name of Nasser I did encounter some name-calling due to ignorance," Hussain said.
"I was lucky enough to play at a club like Essex where we had a middle-order of Nadeem Shahid, Saleem Malik and myself. We had a very multi-cultural county in the south of our county at Ilford where I grew up with my dad and his cricket school where we had a British West Indian net, British Indian net and a British Pakistani net and we would all take the mickey out of each other when India were playing Pakistan, or England were losing to the West Indies. It was great banter and it was fun," he said.
Hussain said he was fortunate enough to have come from a white-ish middle-class, privileged background.
"I grew up in that multi-cultural environment and I was very fortunate. But I understand that I was a white-ish middle-class, public school educated boy so I can't put myself in the shoes of some of the British Asians that are growing up in certain parts of the UK," he said.
Hussain also said that Pakistan batting mainstay Babar Azam has the potential to end up as one of the greats.
"Babar has what it takes to become one of the greats. In white-ball cricket he is up there with the best of them. He is up near the top of the rankings in T20Is, and in fifty over cricket he is exceptional too," Hussain pointed out.
"He did okay in the Test series against England bearing in mind England is not an easy place to come and play Test cricket. He just needs that consistency in Test cricket to be up there with the likes of Virat Kohli. Babar's done that for six to nine months so far. He just needs to be consistent for a longer period of time."
