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Australia’s Usman Khawaja staged a muted protest towards the struggle in Gaza on Thursday, sporting a black armband in the course of the first Check towards Pakistan and taping up messages on his sneakers.
The opening batsman had wished to put on sneakers emblazoned with the hand-written slogans “Freedom is a human proper” and “All lives are equal” in the course of the match at Perth.
However Pakistan-born Khawaja, who’s a Muslim, was informed that it flouted Worldwide Cricket Council guidelines on messages that relate to politics, faith or race.
With Cricket Australia saying it anticipated the gamers to uphold the foundations, Khawaja lined over the slogans with semi-transparent tape leaving the phrases — within the color of the Palestinian flag — seen solely in close-up.
In accordance with native media, Cricket Australia mentioned Khawaja was sporting the armband as a present of solidarity.
Many 1000’s of Gazans have been killed within the 10-week-old Israeli bombardment, sparked by Hamas raids into Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 individuals.
In a video Khawaja not too long ago shared on social media, he requested: “Do individuals not care about harmless people being killed?”
Khawaja has vowed to struggle the ban on his footwear, calling it “a humanitarian attraction”.
He doubled down on his stance simply earlier than entering into to bat within the first Check on Thursday. “I simply suppose that a lot has occurred previously that units a precedent,” Khawaja informed Fox Cricket.
“Different guys which have non secular issues on their gear, underneath the ICC pointers that’s not technically allowed, however the ICC by no means says something on that,” he added.
Australian captain Pat Cummins mentioned he was “actually proud” of his teammate and of different squad members who had spoken up for what they consider in.
