Ebony Rainford-Brent: Trailblazer, influencer, game-changer

NICK FRIEND - EXCLUSIVE: Listening to Ebony Rainford-Brent is an education. For an hour, she opens up on Black Lives Matter, cancel culture, Michael Holding, Sky Sports, Raheem Sterling, taking a knee, the ACE Programme and why she is ready to lead

It says a fair amount about the nature of social media that Ebony Rainford-Brent’s first instinct after recording her testimony for Sky Sports’ remarkable feature on racism and the Black Lives Matter movement was to prepare a new Twitter account under a different name.

Fearing a bile-filled backlash, she set up an alternative alias so that she would still be able to log in to check her cricket feed for work purposes, but without having to confront the reaction she anticipated, having opened up about her experiences as a black woman in England and English cricket.

“I was aware that it was my first day on a proper Sky contract,” she recalls. “I’ve been with them for years, but I was going into that Test match thinking that if it goes wrong, then that’s my career down the pan. If people think this is rubbish, then you’ve just set yourself up for a fall.

“Cancel culture is massive, isn’t it? It’s something that we have to challenge ourselves on because we won’t get understanding or bring people together unless we can allow people to say what they’ve got to say and feel what they’ve got to feel. Especially with platforms like Twitter, if people are not feeling you, they can go hard. It becomes risky to feel like you can say something.

“I was thinking that people might not take to me anymore, seeing me crying and exposed. I turned my phone off and thought that what will be will be.”

It was Nasser Hussain and Bryan Henderson, Sky’s head of cricket, who encouraged her to switch her phone back on so that she could acknowledge an extraordinary global response.

That belated first morning of the international summer seems a long time ago now; but as the rain came down and England and West Indies waited for their chance to re-open the gates to international cricket after months of shutdown, millions stopped to watch one of the most powerful pieces of sportscasting in generations. 

Forty-four days earlier, the death of George Floyd at the hands of US police officers had sparked fury, anguish and worldwide protests. Closer to home, the Black Lives Matter movement was encouraging openness and demanding that others listen.

The images of Rainford-Brent and Michael Holding speaking directly to camera in front of a dark background and without gimmick spread virally, every word absorbed – Test cricket’s most significant rain delay, as it was christened online.

“Seeing influencers in America with massive profiles posting Mikey talking, seeing that crossover globally, seeing it referenced in South Africa’s conversations and Australia’s conversations, that authenticity was the key,” she says.

“A lot of people resonated with the emotions. Me and Mikey had contrasting feelings: it was hitting me in an emotional way, and he was breaking it down in terms of the need for education and the need for understanding so clinically.

“I think people have got to know my face over 10 years – from community grassroots cricket to broadcasting. They’ve seen me smiling and happy-go-lucky all the time, so I think it shocked people that someone they know and see as so happy and jovial had that experience. For an English person, who might think this problem is elsewhere, I think it brought it home.”

^{Since the end of her playing career, she has become a prominent, highly respected broadcaster}

On the day, she couldn’t bring herself to watch as it was broadcast, turning the volume down in the commentary box and looking away, counting down in her head as if she was preparing to go out to bat. Last week marked the first time that she had watched it in its entirety since before it went live – “I welled up, but I wasn’t as emotional.” They filmed their segments separately: Holding was under lockdown at the time, while Rainford-Brent’s contribution was shot at the Kia Oval. “I stopped a couple of times just to hold myself together,” she adds, offering an emotional smile.

“I watched it before they sent it out and I wanted to pull it. I sent it around a couple of family members as the draft, where I had mixed reactions but my two best mates, who are actually white interestingly, said: ‘You have to put it out.’ That gave me confidence.

“On the day, Mikey was on the platform and I was in the commentary box. I looked away because I was still wanting to cry basically. I knew if I watched it, I wouldn’t be able to say what I had to say on my bullet points afterwards.”

The roots of an extraordinary piece could be traced back to a team phone call ahead of the series, led by Henderson. He had called Rainford-Brent beforehand out of courtesy to let her know that he wanted the group to discuss Black Lives Matter and that, if she was happy to, he wanted to hear her thoughts.

“We started the call, Hendo said some words and handed over to me,” she recounts. “There were maybe 20 or 30 people on the call: Nasser, Michael Atherton, all the directors and producers. And I broke down. I don’t know what hit me, but I just started weeping to the point that they asked if I wanted to stop.

“I just said: ‘Well, no.’ This was my one chance to just let it out because I hadn’t really spoken. I just had to get it out.

“Being me and walking through this journey, 99 per cent of the time you walk into the room as the only. Knowing the experiences that many of your friends have had and people who have tried to make it through the game; knowing that I work in the media industry and – even though there might be a few people in front of camera – behind the scenes, there aren’t. And suddenly, I was explaining all of that.

“This was all being said through tears and I was getting texts from everybody saying that they were crying with me and they could feel the emotion.”

The most powerful piece of sports broadcasting that I can recall

When the meeting came to an end, Henderson called her, captivated by the bravery and emotion that she had been able to share.

“He said that he thought we should do something,” Rainford-Brent recalls. “He said: ‘If you can capture that emotion that you just shared to the team and get people to feel what you’re feeling, I think it might be really important.’”

At the time of writing, the video – shortened for social media – of Holding’s unscripted articulacy that followed the initial feature has been viewed 6.8million times.

“I didn’t realise that media could be that powerful,” she says. “I don’t think any of us thought it would cross over, because what it has done is cross over way beyond sport. The black community that I’ve been trying to talk to about getting interested in cricket, they’re sending the video to me!”

One senses that, for her, Sky has come to mean more than any old workplace. She lauds them as “game-changers”, committed to using their platform for good, as she points out, rather than simply reporting news. “They kept the story going,” she says. “Working with the whole team was one of the best experiences. We call it a job, but it felt more purposeful. It feels like you’re on a cause.

“What Nasser said was really authentic and genuine. In some ways, that piece on the platform was maybe more powerful because of what he said; he would have connected to a lot of people when he said: ‘I’ve been looking away. Don’t look away.’”

Even after England stopped taking a knee later in the summer during series against Pakistan and Australia, Sky’s team continued to wear their Black Lives Matter badges. “We kept the conversation going.”

And then, there is Holding, “such an amazing support” and a beacon of wisdom and friendship throughout. “He was messaging me from the Caymans beforehand, telling me it was time to speak up.”

Ebony Rainford-Brent is the driving force behind the ACE Programme Charity

His influence has extended well beyond their broadcasting partnership, his energy opening her eyes to the impact that Rainford-Brent, capped 29 times by England between 2001 and 2010, can leave on her game.

“Spending time with Michael Holding in the lockdown, I saw a lot of his strength,” she says of the West Indies great.

“This goes back to him as a teenager being asked to go to play in the rebel tours and him saying no. You could see it in him: if you believe something, you say it and you do it and you move towards it.”

In a recent Sunday Times interview, Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling explained how he no longer wanted to talk about “what can happen, what should happen,” focusing instead on “trying to put into place stuff I can do myself”.

For Rainford-Brent, “those quotes resonated”. She has been nominated in the Influencer Award category at the Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards, and this summer has seen her growth as a mainstream voice. But she has long been blazing a trail, even if “it has taken a long time to get to this point”.

In 2001, she became the first black woman to play cricket for England – a tag, she admits, that she struggled to own at first. Now, she is director of women’s cricket at Surrey and sits on the club’s management board. Previously, she played a significant role in setting up Wicketz, a Lord’s Taverners programme targeting young people living in deprived communities, and Super 1s, an initiative put together to provide cricketing opportunities for young people with disabilities.

And just like Sterling, who is building his own foundation, Rainford-Brent is the driving force behind the ACE programme – the latest in a long line of roles that she holds, but one that means more than most. The initiative has just received £540,000 in funding from Sport England, to be spread over three years – news that will see the initiative become an independent charity with Rainford-Brent as its chair, with patrons including Holding, Sir Trevor McDonald, Roland Butcher and Denise Lewis.

ACE Programme launches as independent charity as Sport England backs initiative with £540,000 investment

“Before this year, maybe I didn’t feel empowered enough and I might talk about an issue but I didn’t have the confidence to drive it through and I wasn’t sure the timing was right,” she explains.

“I would say I was flirting with making a difference with ACE before and wanting to make change, but the experience I’ve gone through this summer has knocked me into where Raheem Sterling feels now. There is no longer any point in waiting for others to do it. I’m in a position where I can move things and move the dial.

“It was a combination of feeding off Mikey’s energy, as well as feeding off what’s going on in the world, and also realising that there’s no point in waiting. What am I waiting for before we drive this? A lot of us want change but we’re not sure if we have the ability or the power to make a difference.

“But then when you start to look at it, you think: ‘Well, if I can’t make a difference, who else could?’ Really, if I break it down into facts, I am so well positioned to make a difference. In that sense, it is the right time for me to jump on it and own it. Own who I am. Own where I’m from.”

Now is also the time to own being the first black woman to play for England, “because the difference it can make for the future generations is really important”.

“Let’s get this moving, let’s get everyone we can who wants to be on this train and really speak up. I think I’ve shifted into a new level of empowerment.”

As for the ‘influencer’ notion, it intrigues her. “I wouldn’t have put myself in that category maybe before the video with Mikey,” she says.

“Influence is something I’ve been working on. I wouldn’t describe myself as an influencer, but what I would say is that I’m just honoured to be able to use whatever voice I have to try to make the game as representative as our country is. It’s as simple as that.”

Why has that sense of empowerment only come now, though? “I didn’t feel like anyone would have listened before or cared about it,” she admits. This summer, Rainford-Brent believes, has brought about a shift in attitudes that she had not previously seen. Publications have regularly covered “an issue that I’ve known has existed for 400 years within our sport.”

She explains how in previous years she has watched participation figures decline and occasional articles appear sporadically, asking the question of where the next black cricketers might come from but never with any sense of solution.

And with that in mind, she has come to realise her own significance and the role that she can play, listing Surrey chief executive Richard Gould, ECB chief executive Tom Harrison and chairman Ian Watmore as tangible figures of support. Sky and BBC, too.

“It takes you seeing your own opportunity in front of you to be able to do something and then deciding whether to take it on or not,” she says, smiling thoughtfully. “I feel like if I didn’t now use my influence with the position I’m in, it would actually be wrong. I would not be making the most of the experiences I’ve had.

“And that would be a shame and a waste if I walked away, left this conversation and wasn’t driving change. In some ways, if I did that, what would be the point? You’ve done all this work, you’ve put in all this effort, but now you can’t connect it to make a positive change.”

And so, that is why ACE exists: to open doors where, frankly, those doors were not just closed, but bolted. “It’s the most special feeling to see a young person have a stake in our game that they deserve and believe,” says its founder, welling up as she speaks. There is added, deliberate significance to the ACE Programme Charity launching on the final day of Black History Month.

The scheme was initially set up to address a 75 per cent decline in cricket participation by members of the black community. Trials led to a summer programme for 25 youngsters, including a 40-over game at the Kia Oval. One trialist has already featured for Surrey Under-18s, with hopes for more to follow, while the project will expand into Birmingham next year. Bristol, Manchester and Nottingham all also on her three-year hitlist. Rainford-Brent describes watching the group training at Surrey with their parents in attendance as “my happiest moment of the whole summer”.

"We have missed a generation and a half, maybe even more"

“I got emotional and I spoke to the kids as I was leaving. I just said that I wanted them to be them. I don’t want them to feel like they have to prove anything: just be them and they’ll be in an environment that will support them to fulfil their potential as far as they can go.

“That feeling of being able to open the door is the greatest feeling. If, in 20 years – as a result of what the ACE programme does – we’re seeing more kids interested in the game coming through and you see that visually, that will mean more to me than anything. I’d cry for days.”

According to research carried out by Thomas Fletcher at Leeds Beckett University, the number of black non-overseas players in men’s county cricket fell from 33 to nine in the 25 years between 1994 and 2019. There were just three in the domestic women’s game last year.

Only three full-time head coaches in the history of county cricket have been from an African-Caribbean background and none of the current ECB board members are black.

In Rainford-Brent's early days at Surrey, Mark Butcher, Michael Carberry and Alex Tudor were all part of the men’s first team. All three would represent England. Yet, while England had nine black Test debutants between 1981 and 1990, there have been just three since 1999.

A chemist herself, having studied for a Masters in the subject, she points to a quote from scientist Buckminster Fuller. “You never change things by fighting against the existing reality,” he said. “To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.”

She talks about the importance of “systems”, and how today’s county cricket is the product of hundreds of years of build-up.

And so, creating something similarly strong in its foundations is of paramount importance as ACE expands.

Rainford-Brent (left) - pictured alongside fellow future broadcaster Isa Guha - became the first black woman to play cricket for England in 2001

“For it to be a legacy, the most important thing is to have a strong system and talent pathway that goes all the way from the community to a kid being able to represent England,” she explains.

“To build that system that integrates with the existing system, that’s the biggest focus for me. I know that if the system is built and there are connections and relationships with the community and investment, when you step away it will continue like county cricket has continued.

“We want that legacy of a system and a pathway that can go into inner-city areas and help funnel people into the game from those areas. That is what I will be most proud of. I think it takes 10 years to build that.

“What we have to remember is that the game was originally built to service an elite who were colonising other countries. That built the county structure, and there’s nothing wrong with the county structure. We love it and its intricacies. However, to try to unwind that to service other communities, I think that’s impossible.

“That is built around having leafy green villages or cricket clubs or private school networks. We’re not going to change that, and I don’t think we should. I think we should honour it and respect it for what it is, but to open up the game to other areas, we have to build new systems that can complement that. I do feel that there is a desire to open up the game. I think the game wants it.”

By extension, that is also why she was left frustrated and disappointed by England’s decision to dispense with taking the knee during series against Pakistan and Australia.

Both Holding and West Indies captain Jason Holder have also criticised the disappearance of the gesture following the conclusion of England’s ODI series against Ireland. When England Women faced West Indies in September, both sides took a knee ahead of all five WT20Is.

Facing up: Trailblazing Roland Butcher

“I wanted England to take the knee for a lot longer,” Rainford-Brent says. Earlier this year, she undertook a course in anthropology of sport at Goldsmiths, looking at cricket and its values.

“There is a deeper reason, I believe, for all of these issues. A lot of it was caused by the impact of the British empire and we’re now trying to unravel it; if you really think about how we could have made a bit more of a statement as a game, it could have gone a little bit further.

“I appreciate that many people might not feel taking the knee is doing much, but for me I’d say that it’s absolutely changing the consciousness of the public.

“Taking a knee without any follow-up action is pointless, completely. But equally, to put all the measures in place that are needed to shift the dial is not going to happen tomorrow. I just feel that it creates conversation; it creates awareness.

“It might ruffle a few feathers, but they are important feathers to be ruffled. Because if you’re saying: ‘Not that again,’ then maybe you need to unpick what issue you have with this being on the agenda and why it bothers you. And that might open conversations. For me, that’s what it’s about – the consciousness of opening conversations and keeping it on the agenda for long enough that it can then move into the other work that’s being done behind the scenes.

“People will never forget a summer of taking the knee, but I think what I remember now is that we took it for a few games and stopped it. It doesn’t feel like it had the same impact. It’s a personal opinion and I’m sure a lot of people will disagree – I don’t mind that. I just felt there was a chance to do more than do less.”

Doing less is not an accusation that could ever be levelled at Rainford-Brent. This unofficial role as a “champion” of diversity wasn’t one she set out to hold and “a process of acceptance” took place in her own mind along the way.

She speaks here for an hour – from the heart, but full of knowledge. Together with her studies in chemistry and anthropology of sport, she took herself on a philosophy course last year.

One of the questions posed was around the meaning of human existence. “There was no answer,” she laughs.

“What is the point of my life? I don’t know. I didn’t get enough caps and runs unfortunately, so I’m not going to be remembered like Charlotte Edwards, but at least I can try to find another way to impact it.

“If I just have a good broadcasting career, will I be happy? Yes, I most probably will be. But if I have a career where I use my platform to make a difference, I will most probably be happier at the end of it.”

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