"He’s standing up for what he believes" - Pat Cummins supports Usman Khawaja's stance over humanitarian crisis in Gaza
Australian Test and ODI captain Pat Cummins has yet again thrown his weight behind Usman Khawaja over his support for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. With the ICC rejecting Khawaja's gesture (wearing shoes with messages) to express solidarity with the Palestine victims in the Boxing Day Test, Cummins reckons there's nothing offensive about it, but admits that rules are to be accepted.
On Sunday, Khawaja was spotted training with an image of a dove and Olive branch on the back of his bat and right shoe. The logo remains a reference to an article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reading 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.' Despite obtaining a green signal for the logo from Cricket Australia and Australian Cricketers' Association, the ICC declined the same.
Speaking at a presser on Monday, Cummins lauded Khawaja for standing up for his beliefs but feels certain things are out of players' control.
He was quoted as saying by The Sydney Morning Herald:
"I don’t know the ins and outs of the application, but I think it is pretty vanilla, a dove. We really support Uzzy, I think he’s standing up for what he believes and I think he’s doing it really respectfully. All lives are equal and I don’t think that’s very offensive, and I’d say the same about the dove. That’s Uzzy. He can hold his head high the way he’s gone about it, but there’s rules in place, so I believe the ICC have said they’re not going to approve that. They make up the rules and you’ve got to accept it."
Cummins suggested that the entire team supports the veteran opener's view that war is futile.
"I’ve spoken to Uzzy a fair bit. I won’t go into too [much] depth, but it’s really similar to what he’s said publicly. He just sees all lives as equal, he sees the war there as a waste, and there’s a lot of loss that he’s trying to shine a light on that he thinks isn’t necessary. We support him."
Khawaja wished to wear shoes that had slogans of 'Freedom is a human right' and 'All lives are equal' ahead of the opening Test in Perth, but the ICC disallowed him. Instead, the southpaw wore a black armband for which the ICC reprimanded him.
"We’ll see how it plays" - Pat Cummins on MCG pitch
Cummins observed that the MCG pitch looks quite good and it's not as green as it looked last year, hinting it will be good for batting.
"It looks really good, fair bit of grass, probably a fair bit harder and not as green as last year, knowing it was potentially going to be under covers today and for a little bit tomorrow maybe, so we’ll see how it plays but it looks like a really good wicket," he stated.
Australia won by 360 runs in Perth to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.