Dear Editor,
Inevitably, there will be sport politics, but there is no place for politics in sport. I refer to Australian batsman Usman Khawaja and his challenge against the ICC for protesting the current affairs in the Middle East. With all due respect, cricket and sports in general is not the place to protest these volatile issues. If Usman Khawaja has a stance and view with those issues, then he should go to the Middle East and join the fight. Sorry, not sorry, and the Black Lives Matter movement should’ve never made its way into cricket and sports either. Usman Khawaja is letting his team and Australia down; he doesn’t have the facts and can’t be stating his personal beliefs with an Australian team shirt on.
If that is his objective and he wants to protest, he should do so on his personal platform.
This is going to hit a nerve, but Usman Khawaja is a Pakistani immigrant, he sheltered in and was grown by Australia to be the man he is today and now wants to self-promote unlike Imran Khan who chose to stay in Pakistan and bravely work for his people. That is selfishness and boldfaced to now be a champion of peace as a born-again Aussie. He has nothing to say about human rights violations in Afghanistan, which conveniently is governed by the Taliban when Australia opted out of series against them, nothing to say about the hungry kids in Africa and nothing to say about what’s going on in Europe.
That sounds like an agenda to me, Usman ought to back down and focus on cricket because he has practically ended his career. Politics has no place in sports, just play the damn game.
Sincerely,
Kendell Karan
Chaguanas