Hypocrisy over Khawaja’s armband now borders on the absurd

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.

We don’t need to read fine print on Khawaja’s shoes to know his opinions. Or spot a dove and olive branch logo – approved by Australian cricket officials, not the ICC – in a Big Bash match to confirm his humanitarian credentials. Just as the colour pink at the Sydney Test is now synonymous with breast cancer nurses and even Peppa Pig was seen by twitchy Chinese officialdom as a symbol of dissent a few years ago, Khawaja’s presence on a cricket field has resonance beyond results. We can see the ICC’s obduracy in the empty space on his shirtsleeves and shoes.

Meanwhile, Test captain Pat Cummins is in a tricky spot, like a batsman stranded halfway down a pitch. He is loyal to teammates and a man of principles. Late in 2022 he expressed misgivings about the team’s sponsorship by an energy company. “More so than ever before,” he said, “you’re seeing players’ personalities and interests and passions shine through.” Cummins is concerned about the climate. I wonder how he feels about wearing the name of a car company that makes some of Australia’s most popular XXL gas-guzzlers on the front of his Test shirt. Sponsors associated with Cummins’ winning World Cup team in India also included an airline, chain stores for fast food and alcohol and a UK-based gambling firm. To clean things up, there was also a well-known antiseptic.

The ICC’s own commercial partners include a soft-drink giant and an energy and chemicals company. But there on its website, along with reports on Warner’s retirement and results in the Australia v India women’s T20 series, is a heading ‘Cricket 4 Good – Social Responsibility’. Sounds promising. So too the pronouncement: “Cricket can be a force for good and a vehicle that can be used to raise awareness of issues that might otherwise garner little or no publicity”. Terrific.

But here’s a curious thing. The ICC’s website is up with scores but nothing seems to have happened on the Cricket 4 Good front since ... 2016. I guess they’ve been busy keeping Khawaja in line. Good thing he’s still at the crease attending to those issues.

Alan Attwood is a former Age sportswriter, section editor and foreign correspondent.

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