The senior Australian opener Usman Khawaja has left the cricketing fraternity in an extreme state of shock with some big accusations against Cricket Australia. The 36-year-old has accused the Aussie cricket board of being biased on racial grounds while selecting the teams for either of the international assignments.
While speaking to Sydney Morning Herald, the southpaw revealed that he couldn’t support the Australian side while growing up when he was a teenager the age of 14-15 years. Khawaja said that racial hegemony hasn’t changed to any extent in the country for the last decade.
“That’s where I’m trying to work with Cricket Australia saying, ‘Look, guys … you invest a lot of money into this, but something’s not going right. You’ve been doing it for 10 years and nothing’s changed,” said Khawaja to Sydney Morning Herald.
“There’s subconscious bias. If you have two cricketers, one brown, one white, both the same, the white coach is going to pick the white cricketer just because he has a son that might look similar to him. It’s what’s familiar to him,” he added later.
He also opened up about the incident that happened to him when he was heading to the hotel.
“I got stopped 3 times last year at our hotel, while in Australian kit, and asked if I was with the Australian Cricket team…” revealed the Pakistan-based Australian cricketer.
This statement from Usman Khawaja has left the fans on a thinking note and subsequently, they took to Twitter to question the ethics and principles of Cricket Australia.
Here’s how fans reacted:
But they have a problem with afghanistan pic.twitter.com/kDKCnXDAiM
— Utsah Seth (@UtsahSeth) January 13, 2023
Only brown thing that the coach might like is sandpaper.
— Geet Jain (@geetjain4) January 13, 2023
— cric freak (@cricfreak1718) January 13, 2023
He knows that he will fail in bgt series and will be dropped because of his age. So play racism card .
— mkt777 (@Mayank17071999) January 13, 2023
😭Khawaja is set to be dropped after speaking this for BGT
— arnav.🏏 (@Cricket_Arnav) January 13, 2023
Casual racism has been the biggest issue as Pujara was called Steve ..
— movieman (@movieman777) January 13, 2023
Racism at its peak 🙏
— Sourav (@ShowraavDusra) January 13, 2023
All of Australian's ancestors were thieves, liars, criminals and rapists so it is in their blood to do things like this
— Sid 🤖 (@Hxxlxnd9) January 13, 2023
Toh bhai kyu rehna h waha, Chałę ja one mulq. Waha ki local white ladki se shadi bhai nahi krni the fir toh.
— Bhuvan 🇮🇳🕉 (@Imbgondal) January 13, 2023
U support racism?? Just because muslim is speaking against it, such hatred huh.
— mr. robot (@hamzapatel007) January 13, 2023
Notably, Australia under the captaincy of full-time Test skipper Pat Cummins took on South Africa in the recently concluded three-match Test series on their home soil. The hosts won the first two Tests in Brisbane and Melbourne to take an unassailable lead of 2-0 in the three-match series before the Sydney fixture ended up in a draw.
Now, the Aussies will tour India for a full-fledged four-match Test series starting from the 9th of February next month. Both teams will play the first match at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur.