Racism in sport has seen a huge increase in the last couple of years and although there is a lot of social media outcry against this and many other protests, it still continues to exist, impacting players from all sports all round the world. Revealing details about how he faced racism during his earlier days in cricket, he said, as quoted by ESPNCricinfo, “When I was younger in Australia, the amount of time I got told I was never going to play for Australia, I’m not the right skin colour was immense. I’d get told I don’t fit the team, and they wouldn’t pick me. That was the mentality, but now it’s starting to shift.” The left-hander became the first Muslim cricketer to play for Australia when he made his debut 10 years back in 2011 during the Ashes. Australia Cricketers Finally Meet Their Families Post Quarantine After Returning From India (Watch Video)
So far, he has represented Australia in 44 Test matches, 40 ODIs and 9 T20Is. Born in Islamabad , he had travelled to Australia with his family at just five years of age. The 34-year old also revealed that he initially didn’t support the Australian cricket team but that changed when people from the subcontinent in Australia, expressed pride at his success.
When I started being more involved in cricket, people with subcontinent heritage in Australia came up to me and said, ‘We’re so happy to see you at the top. Seeing someone like you, we feel we’ve got a part in the Australian team, and we support the Australian team. We didn’t do it before, and we do it now’,” he said, adding, “And that kept happening over and over and over again. The more that happened, I realised my background does matter, and it does make a difference. And then I realised from my childhood it probably took me a while to support Australia. I didn’t really support Australia when I first went [from Pakistan] because I didn’t really get it,” he added.
(The above story first appeared on Today News 24 on Jun 04, 2021 07:58 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website todaynews24.top).
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