India v Australia: Indian cricket administrator hits out at treatment of Usman Khawaja

A former Indian cricket administrator has struck out at New Delhi’s treatment of Usman Khawaja, after the opener’s visa was delayed prior to the Test tour.

Peter Lalor

5 min read

7:30PMMarch 15, 2023

News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom

Steve Smith & Rohit Sharma preview WTC Final

A prominent intellectual and former member of the BCCI’s panel of administrators has struck out at the Indian government’s treatment of Usman Khawaja labelling it “vicious and spiteful”.

News Corp revealed in February that Khawaja, a Pakistan-born Muslim who became an Australian citizen, could not join his teammates on the flight for the first match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series because his visa was delayed.

The same happened to Khawaja in 2014, but on both occasions he was eventually granted the document and was able to leave.

Ramchandra Guha, a former member of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s panel of administrators and one of the country’s leading historians, slammed the treatment of Khawaja in an interview with Indian website The Wire.

Khawaja’s visa was delayed before the tour kicked off. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

“Khawaja is a fine cricketer, he played very impressively and to hold up his visa was an act of spitefulness,” he said.

“It shows India in a very poor light, not the BJP, not (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi, but you and me as Indians that our country could hold up someone’s visas even though he is an Australian citizen.

“In my view Pakistan should be able to play in India and come for the World Cup because cricketers are not terrorists, cricketers don’t represent their government, they just play a sport.”

Khawaja was forced to fly to Melbourne and wait overnight for a visa there when he could not board the plane with his teammates.

“It was a vicious and spiteful act and in some ways, given all that went on, it is poetic justice that Khawaja scored a hundred, not one of the other 10 Australians,” Guha said.

Khawaja was targeted on social media for his Pakistan heritage during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series.

There were unconfirmed reports he was booed by elements of the crowd when he hurt his leg fielding.

Guha went on to lash out at revelations by News Corp that local and visiting fans had been denied tickets for the first day of the Ahmedabad Test because 85,000 had been set aside on government instruction.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) and Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L) wave to spectators at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad, before the start of the fourth and final Test match. (Photo by Punit PARANJPE / AFP)

“It is deeply upsetting and also upsetting that it took an Australian writer to point this out,” he said.

“This is well known among Indian cricket writers, but no Indian cricket journalist or website had the courage or the decency to write about this.

“Once Peter Lalor wrote about it and it became a diplomatic embarrassment.

“This blew up on social media and Indian fans started protesting … and embarrassed the organisers to release more tickets.

“But a majority of tickets were kept for Modi (supporters).

“It’s an absolute scandal that cricket fans were treated this way and a secondary scandal that cricket journalists in India, newspapers and magazines, dedicated cricket websites did not pick this up.”

SMITH KEEPS CAPTAINCY DUTIES FOR ONE-DAY SERIES

Steve Smith will stay on as acting captain of the ODI side after Pat Cummins made the decision to remain with his family.

Cummins returned home half way through the Border Gavaskar Trophy to be by the side of his mother Maria who died on the eve of the fourth match.

The side wore black arm bands for their respected teammate during the game.

“Pat won’t be coming back, he’s still taking care of what’s happened back home,” coach Andrew McDonald said.

“Our thoughts are with Pat and his family as they go through that grieving process.”

Cummins will not be replaced in the squad, but Nathan Ellis has come in for the injured Jhye Richardson.

Pat Cummins is staying in Australia to be with his family following the death of his mother. Picture: Getty Images

The Australians have a three-match one-day series against India beginning in Mumbai on Friday.

Australia lost the Test series 2-1 and while happy with only the second ever win by a visiting team in India in the past decade, knows it let a chance slip.

McDonald conceded the results in the first two Tests were disappointing but the team rallied for the second half.

“I think it’s a good result if you are taking the last two Tests matches but what we set out to achieve here we weren’t quite able to achieve it,” he said.

“You can pin it back to Delhi where we were in control of that game and lost those eight wickets and pretty much the whole series shifted from there.

“I’m really impressed with the way the players rebounded after that little break and reset themselves. Indore was impressive and I felt like this game was another impressive performance, albeit it didn’t really go anywhere and sometimes the surface does dictate how the game pans out.”

McDonald said it was important the group learned from its failure at Delhi and moved on.

“It’s a proud group and they’ll see it as a missed opportunity. Not many teams come here and get the opportunity like what was presented in Delhi and if it had been 1-all there who knows how the series goes from there so there’s a lot of what-ifs around that,” he said.

“We could only control what we did moving forward and the last two Tests we got some solid performances.”

Steve Smith will captain Australia for the upcoming one-day series in India. Picture: AFP

Australia now has a chance to even the score against India in the World Test Championship at The Oval in London in June.

“(It’s going to be) a lot different,” McDonald said.

“We are super excited about that. If you look at what we embarked upon at the start of Pakistan, into Sri Lanka, into India, we set that as three series in the subcontinent.

“We’ve come away from that with three wins, three losses and three draws. And that’s a pretty tough World Test Championship cycle so to finish on top of the table with that on the calendar is pretty impressive and we’re the world No. 1, too, so pretty proud of what the team’s been able to achieve but in saying that we didn’t achieve what we wanted to here.”

The issue for Australia is that players who go right through the IPL tournament will have one week to warm up for the WTC final.

“It will be squeezed,” McDonald admitted.

“Pretty much straight on the back of the IPL. We’ll head to England with plenty of time to prepare over there. We’ve got things that are almost in place for that. We’ll be well prepared.

“It’s the way of modern cricket. Dealing with short turnarounds, shifting from the format to format and the players know what they are in for when they are shifting from format to format and they are pretty good at it.”