‘I just sat there thinking: I’m a cricketer, what makes me different?’

Forty years since the first black cricketer to play for England, players open up on a hidden history of racism and exclusionIn 1981, David “Syd” Lawrence played his debut season for Gloucestershire – a big deal for a 17-year-old, who had inherited his cricketing passion from his Jamaican father. He was sitting in his hotel room during his first away game when there was a knock at the door. He opened it to find a banana skin outside, left there by one of his own teammates. &ldqu