Usman Khawaja on race and Australian cricket

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When he was younger, Usman Khawaja wanted to change himself to fit in. Now, he wants to change cricket.

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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.

“There were times when I was tempted, guys would be like ‘come on, have a drink, have a drink,’” he says. “To be honest that’s the one thing I stayed strong on, as for the rest I wanted to be like everyone else. I wanted to be Aussie growing up, I didn’t like the fact I had brown skin. I kind of wanted to have white skin and be like everyone else and have that surfie look and put blond in my hair because I thought that was cool and everyone else was doing it.

After he moved to Queensland in 2012, away from family and his Sydney friendship network, Khawaja found more freedom to figure out who he was and how he wanted to be as a cricketer and a person. Australian teammates noticed this when he was recalled in 2015, in terms of his dress sense, his attitudes.Credit:“Look I just stopped giving a crap, that’s the honest truth,” he says.

That example was taken out of the Australian side when Khawaja was dropped during the 2019 Ashes. Since then, he’s become a father, and led Queensland to the Sheffield Shield – showing particular knack for captaining wrist spinner Mitch Swepson. At the same time, he is building the Usman Khawaja Foundation, geared at aiding young cricketers from non-white backgrounds to find a footing in the game. Ultimately, he wants to see many more faces like his own at all levels.

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seem to remember the don was a tea totaller ... and dav whatmore wasnt anglo saxon nor the agar brothers ...but hey its a good article as long as you give it some leeway .....seems AFL and NRL have been more multi cultural is that due to talent or a deliberate program 🤔🤔🤔

Everything is political now - even washed up cricketers

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