Batsman Usman Khawaja, who made his Test debut in 2011, has solidified his position in the Australian team over the years. Born in Pakistan, Khawaja is the first Muslim player to represent Australia in international cricket. The left-handed batsman recently attracted a lot of attention after missing his first double Test century during the series against South Africa. However, in a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Khawaja spoke about the racial discrimination and swear words he faced while growing up in Australia.
“I found that really hard growing up, and I think that little bit of resentment still lingers in a lot of young kids, especially from ethnic backgrounds, who are always called names and racially vilified. ‘Curry muncher’ is the one that sticks with me the most. That’s what I was always called,” Sydney Morning Herald quoted Khawaja as saying.
Khawaja further revealed that in his early days he was not chosen on the team just because of his color as the coaches and selectors preferred a white player over him.
“At that high level of performance, you don’t realize it, but a lot of the coaches do [and] selector switches are white. There is unconscious bias. If you have two cricketers, one brown, one white, both the same, the white coach will choose the white cricketer just because he has a son who looks like him. It’s what looks familiar to him,” said Khawaja.
“There have been plenty of times when I should have been picked for teams and I wasn’t,” he said bluntly. “But it just put a bigger chip on my shoulder,” he added.
Earlier in December, Khawaja also took to Twitter and shared that he was stopped at a team hotel asking if he was part of the Australian team.
You get used to it. I was stopped 3 times last year at our hotel whilst in Australian Kit asking if I was with the Australian Cricket team… #youdontlookaustralian#orsay https://t.co/XSpsX0KXdL
— Usman Khawaja (@Uz_Khawaja) December 25, 2022
In 56 Tests, the 36-year-old batsman scored 4162 runs in 13 centuries and 19 half-centuries. Apart from this he has played 40 ODIs and hit 1554 runs with a strike rate of 84.09.
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