Usman Khawaja welcomes Cricket Australia plan to boost diversity

Cricket Australia will act to boost the number of South Asian players in the professional ranks after taking advice from a Test star.

A plan to boost the involvement of cricketers from South Asian backgrounds at the elite level has been welcomed by Usman Khawaja, who says the sport continues to be “white-dominated”.

Cricket Australia revealed on Friday it wants to double the number of South Asian players involved across the nation’s professional competitions over the next four years.

Players who hail from countries including India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka account for almost one-fifth of all cricketers in Australian junior competitions but are under-represented at the top level, with only 4.2 per cent across men’s and women’s state cricket, the BBL and WBBL.

Khawaja, who remains the only South Asian-born men’s Test cricketer to play for Australia, pushed heavily for the release of the multicultural action plan and said it could help bridge the gap in representation between the grassroots level and top flight.

Cricket Australia boss Nick Hockley (left) and Australian cricketers Usman Khawaja and Lisa Sthalekar (centre, back) were at the launch of CA’s multicultural action plan at the MCG on Friday. Picture: Morgan Hancock / Getty Images

“Cricket Australia’s always been great supporters of multiculturalism of Australia, they’ve put a lot of money in … but it hasn’t eventually equated to having more participation at high performance levels,” he said.

“We have such great participation of southeast Asian communities and multicultural communities in Australia, but we never see that reflected in the Australian cricket team, both male and female, particularly the male team over the last 100 years.

“I felt like we needed to do things a little bit differently.”

Fewer than a dozen players of South Asian origin hold a men’s or women’s state contract, and only Fawad Ahmed, Gurinder Sandhu and Tanveer Sangha have broken into an Australian men’s side in any format since Khawaja’s Test debut in 2011.

As well as boosting player numbers, Khawaja said more coaches and other staff from diverse backgrounds would help South Asian cricketers rise through the system.

He said issues such as fasting for Ramadan had led to him being perceived as lazy and fuelled unhelpful stereotypes about cricketers from the subcontinent.

Khawaja says cultural misunderstandings contributed to him being unfairly tagged as ‘lazy’ earlier in his career. Picture: Phil Hillyard

“The issue is that for a long time, Cricket Australia has been a very white-dominated sport, so how do we get multicultural and particularly people from southeast Asian backgrounds who absolutely love the game into this game – not only from the player point of view but staff, coaching, high performance roles,” Khawaja said.

“Doing Ramadan as a Muslim, I did that at Cricket NSW and no one had any idea what I was doing – for the naked eye, you just look at it and think ‘oh Uzzie, he’s not training hard enough, he’s not working hard enough’, but it’s 6.30 in the arvo and I haven’t eaten or drunk all day.

“We’re doing a fitness session, I’m still out there, yes I’m lagging behind everyone, but I’m still doing the work.

“So it’s those things you can break down when you actually have someone from a subcontinental background, (to say) ‘it’s all right, he’s fasting, just give him a little bit of love, he’s doing all the work’.”

CA chief executive Nick Hockley thanked Khawaja and former Australian women’s cricketer Lisa Sthalekar for their work advising on the action plan.

“I’m particularly grateful to Usman Khawaja and Lisa Sthalekar for helping us launch and providing inspiration for a plan that we are confident will lead to more outstanding players from South Asian and other multicultural backgrounds rising through the ranks of Australian cricket,” he said.