‘What a bold statement’- Twitter praises Usman Khawaja for speaking up against racism in Australia
Usman Khawaja debuted for Australia in 2013.
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Jan 13, 2023 2:42 pm
Usman Khawaja (Source: Twitter)
Usman Khawaja has brought attention to a pertinent issue that is existing in Australian cricket and that is racism in Australian cricket. He blamed Cricket Australia (CA) for being prejudiced in their team selections, be to for players or coaches. The 36-year-old, who is of Pakistan descent, has been the only player of South Asian origin to play for Australia at the Test level.
Khawajawas born in Islamabad and relocated to New South Wales when he was 4. He revealed that he did not pledge his allegiance to the Australian side till he was about 14-15 years of age. He also alleged that the attitude of the country to racism has not shown any improvement even after 10 years. He made his debut in 2013 and came in for Ricky Ponting in an Ashes Test. He has played 56 Tests, 40 ODIs and 9 T20Is for Australia so far.
Usman Khawaja talked about an incident which happened on Christmas last year
“That’s where I’m trying to work with Cricket Australia saying, ‘Look, guys … you invest a lot of money into this, but something’s not going right. You’ve been doing it for 10 years and nothing’s changed,” Khawaja was quoted as saying in Indian Express. “There’s subconscious bias. If you have two cricketers, one brown, one white, both the same, the white coach is going to pick the white cricketer just because he has a son that might look similar to him. It’s what’s familiar to him.”
Khawaja also talked about an incident that happened to him on Christmas last year. Khawaja has been playing for Australia across formats since 2013 but had to go through the pain of being scrutinized regularly by the security guards midway while playing a series.
I got stopped 3 times last year at our hotel, while in an Australian kit and asked if I was with the Australian Cricket team…” Well-known journalist Bharat Sundaresan also talked about how he had faced racism at Grounds in Australia even after being in the country for five summers and that other Australian journalists had to intervene to save him from the wrath of the security personnel.
Let us take a look at the reactions on Twitter here:
Still think Australia's underlying racism problem that kept Usman Khawaja out of the test team probably played a bigger role in their humiliation. They won't acknowledge it, but Khawaja is a top player with a history of playing well against India.
My love and respect for Usman Khawaja only increases the more he speaks up on such issues. And it takes great courage to do so as well. More love to him 💖💖💖
So he implies that he needs a brown coach to get selected? If a Brown coach selects a Brown player over a white player is that not biased? Australia has plenty of talents, few talents won't get picked irrespective of their colour as they can accommodate only 11#UsmanKhawaja
