Cricket: Michael Holding lashes Australia, England and Pakistan for not taking a knee

Michael Holding has attacked England, Pakistan and Australia for their failure to take a knee in support of Black Lives Matter

Michael Holding believes cricketers have compromised the fight for equality

Michael Holding has launched a scathing criticism of England, Pakistan and Australia for their failure to take a knee in support of Black Lives Matter in their recent series.

The great West Indies fast bowler, who played 60 Tests between 1975 and 1987 and is now a Sky commentator, delivered an impassioned plea for change before the start of England’s Test series against West Indies in July. The 66-year-old Holding was joined by his co-commentator, Ebony Rainford-Brent, and they both gave their full support to the BLM movement. The England and West Indies players took a knee, as did England and Ireland in their ODI series that followed.

However, that has since stopped. Neither team took a knee in England’s Test and Twenty20 series against Pakistan, while neither England nor Australia did in their T20 series concluded on Tuesday. The are also unlikely to do so in the ODI series starting early on Saturday.

Holding believes all three teams are compromising the fight for equality.

“Their excuses and reasons are flimsy,” he said. “They need to come forward with something better than that. You can’t just do something for a week or two and expect things to change — otherwise don’t bother doing it at all.”

Australian captain Aaron Finch said before the T20 series that he was proud to be part of a multicultural sport and that his team would not take a knee because education is “more important than the protest”.

“They (Finch and Eoin Morgan, the England captain) decided not to take a knee,” Holding said. “He (Finch) is saying he is glad he is part of a sport where no one is barred from playing irrespective of race, gender, ethnicity, religion. That is pretty lame.

“What that says to me is if the apartheid regime had a lot of multiracial sport in South Africa, and kept the apartheid laws, everything would have been OK. No, it would not have been OK. If you don’t want to sympathise and recognise the movement, just say that, don’t come up with lame excuses.

“You have to keep the awareness going,” he said. “Someone sees a person kneeling and they ask why — it keeps it going and going. The England team are the only pro team to stop taking a knee. The football team are still doing it. All over the world people are doing it. So why have the cricket team stopped?”

There are concerns that the BLM movement has become politicised but Holding said: “I don’t care about the politics behind it. I care about those three words — Black Lives Matter — and moving the world towards equality.”

The ECB said that it had responded by taking a knee “in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement” and that it was pursuing wider initiatives.

The Times