Sorry. We’ve been focusing on the wrong opening batsman for the past week. All the attention paid to Dave Warner meant we were distracted from the far more significant cricketer at the other end of the pitch: Usman Khawaja.
A feature of “Warner Week” was Dave’s missing caps, which reappeared as mysteriously as they vanished. Cap-gate upstaged Uzzy’s shoes and shirtsleeves, which have become the most discussed items of cricketing clothing since hairy-chested Dennis Lillee’s plunging neckline.
Usman Khawaja wears a black armband in “personal bereavement” for children killed in Gaza, in the first Test against Pakistan.Credit: Getty Images
But now the International Cricket Council, which stands proudly in the grand tradition of sporting bodies that break all dozen eggs in the carton in making a two-egg omelette, has put Khawaja’s kit back in the spotlight. For the ICC has rejected Khawaja’s appeal against a reprimand for wearing a black armband during the Test against Pakistan in Perth last month. Despite fears about the future of Test cricket, the ICC has got its priorities right, squelching one player’s freedom of expression.
To recap (no, we’re not back with Warner): Khawaja wore the armband after being refused permission to wear cricket shoes on which he’d written, in small but legible letters in the colours of the Palestine flag, “All lives are equal” and “Freedom is a human right”.
Hard to argue with these sentiments. But the manner of their presentation was unacceptable to the ICC, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, a bastion of human rights. Khawaja said he wore the armband for a personal bereavement, but as the father of young girls he has also made clear how images of dead children in Gaza have affected him.
The ICC has given Khawaja’s dignified stand and recent statements more scrutiny than would have occurred had it let things slide. After all, the writing on Uzzy’s shoes was less offensive than a motivating mantra eagle-eyed observers spied atop English cricketer Jos Buttler’s bat in 2018: “F--- It”. Buttler said the words reminded him to keep events on a pitch in perspective. He was so damaged by the fallout that he went on to be England’s World Cup captain.
Khawaja, too, will emerge from the storm on a shirtsleeve smelling rosier than clod-footed administrators. Apart from his impressive statistics, the Pakistan-born opener already has a unique place in the Australian team as a player of colour and a Muslim, a non-drinker in a dressing room often drenched with booze. People listen because he speaks softly. Unlike most of his line-toeing colleagues, he is not afraid to speak out, confronting some of the agitated Hooray Henrys in the Lord’s member’s pavilion last July.
Khawaja made his point. The ICC amplified it. He is one of those rare figures in sport who stand for something. Like Naomi Osaka, the Japanese-born tennis player who, en route to her second US Open victory in 2020, embraced the Black Lives Matter cause. Like Andrey Rublev, the Russian tennis player who wrote “No War Please” on a TV camera after winning a match in the ICC’s hometown of Dubai early in 2022 as Ukraine braced for tanks.
Hypocrisy on Khawaja’s armband now borders on the absurd
6
1
10.01.2024
Sorry. We’ve been focusing on the wrong opening batsman for the past week. All the attention paid to Dave Warner meant we were distracted from the far more significant cricketer at the other end of the pitch: Usman Khawaja.
A feature of “Warner Week” was Dave’s missing caps, which reappeared as mysteriously as they vanished. Cap-gate upstaged Uzzy’s shoes and shirtsleeves, which have become the most discussed items of cricketing clothing since hairy-chested Dennis Lillee’s plunging neckline.
Usman Khawaja wears a black armband in “personal bereavement” for children killed in Gaza, in the first Test against Pakistan.Credit: Getty Images
But now the International Cricket Council, which stands proudly in the grand tradition of sporting bodies that break all dozen eggs in the carton in........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
