During India versus Australia’s first test match, retired Australian cricketer, Shane Warne said something racist about Cheteshwar Pujara while giving the live commentary.
Everyone knows that pronouncing an Indian name is very difficult, especially for foreigners. One such hard to pronounce name belongs to Pujara. The name ‘Cheteshwar’ is not easy to pronounce and hence, Shane Warne decided to go for calling him Steve instead. Steve is the name that was given to Cheteshwar Pujara when he was playing county cricket.
Shane Warne, referring to the same name, casually called him Steve on the live commentary. Fans did not take this well as it sounded racist. Calling Pujara by some other name made Shane look very unprofessional and racist. Fans also said that he must learn to pronounce his name instead of coming up with some alternatives. It has come to light that in the county, people of different colours have been called ‘Steve’. Former Yorkshire captain Azeem Rafiq has also filed an official complaint against English County Club regarding this.
Even though Pujara himself or the BCCI hasn’t taken any strict action against it, fans are taking it to social media and asking Shane Warne to stick to calling players by their names.