Usman Khawaja would like a word with you. Not a harsh word, nor an overbearing one, but a word nonetheless.
Usman Khawaja just before his Test debut, when he was still trying to fit into a predominantly white Australian cricket culture.Most of all, he’d like the conversation to be passed on, through the ranks of Cricket Australia, state associations and clubs, so that the advancement of the women’s game can be replicated in a multicultural sense. Khawaja, you see, doesn’t want to be the only south Asian, Muslim-Australian Test cricketer you can name off the top of your head.
“I’ve said numerous times that people told me ‘you’re not going to make it, you’re not going to play for Australia, it’s a white man’s game, they won’t select you’. There could have been plenty of times where I thought ‘nah this is too hard, it’s not going to happen, I’m not getting opportunities,’ but fortunately I’m very stubborn and I have quite thick skin and I just kept pushing, pushing because I love the game and I want to do well.
“I didn’t go out and drink with the boys and for a long time I felt like I was missing out on some really good conversations when they were out drinking and partying and at pubs. I’d miss out on all these stories and thought ‘oh, am I missing out on opportunities because I’m not one of the lads’ and these are the sorts of things that could have put me aside.
Then there was his willingness to do things such as “dabbing” to celebrate a 50 during the SCG Test in January 2017. “I dabbed in a Test match and got absolutely berated by people,” he says, “and I just asked the simple question ‘why can I not dab when I score a 50 in a Test match, why is that not allowed?’ And it was ‘oh, because you just can’t do it’ and I said ‘so you can raise the bat, you can raise your thumb, you can take off your helmet, but I’m not allowed to dab’.
danbrettig Aren’t the majority of the world’s cricket players South Asian (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh), with a lot more of them Muslim than Christian (Pakistan, Bangladesh)? This is a country with a white majority so why does it surprise you the players and admins are likewise mostly white
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