Former Australian skipper Ian Chappell has recalled his brush with racism as he offered his views on the raging issue, talking about a time when he saw fellow players being abused and discriminated against but not without a note of protest from him.

"My first overseas tour was to South Africa in 1966-67 and it was an eye-opener. The apartheid regime was in power and we got a taste of its abhorrent nature after winning the second Test in Cape Town," he remembered in a column for ESPNCricinfo. "'Why don't you pick Garry Sobers? Then you'll have a team full of blacks' was the offensive comment directed at Australian batsman Grahame Thomas by an ignorant patron in the team hotel. Thomas has Native American lineage dating back to the days of slavery," he said.

Recalling another incident the same year, Chappell narrated how a player of colour in an International Wanderers side was targeted near Port Elizabeth.

"John Shepherd, who played for West Indies and Kent, and is of the most gentle people on this earth, was part of our side. As we were leaving, a member of the crowd shouted out: 'Why don't you paint yourself white, Shepherd, and then you can be like the rest of them'," Chappell wrote. "This is the sad reality of racism. What is implied often cuts deepest."