A former BCCI administrator has hit out on the remedy of Usman Khawaja by Indian authorities through the just lately concluded India-Australia Test sequence, calling it “vicious and spiteful”.
Khawaja’s visa was delayed forward of the sequence, inflicting him to overlook the flight to India alongside his teammates and forcing him to fly to Melbourne and spend the evening in an airport resort.
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The Pakistani-born Khawaja was the one member of the Australian staff to have visa points forward of the extremely anticipated Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Leading Indian historian Ramachandra Guha, who previously held a place on the BCCI’s panel of directors, hit out on the delays.
“Khawaja is a fine cricketer, he played very impressively, and to hold up his visa was an act of spitefulness,” Guha advised Indian journalist Karan Thapar on The Wire.
“It shows India in a very poor light, not the (ruling party) BJP, not (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi, but you and me as Indians that our country could hold up someone’s visas even though he is an Australian citizen,” he stated.
“It was a vicious and spiteful act and in some ways, given all that went on, it is poetic justice that Khawaja scored a hundred.”
Khawaja is a twin citizen of each Australia and Pakistan, holding an Australian passport and Pakistani passport, however India visa purposes require anybody of Pakistani origin, whether or not they or their mother and father had been born in Pakistan, to declare their origin standing on a separate software type, in addition to whether or not their grandparents have at any level held Pakistani nationality.
India and Pakistan have been in battle because the partition of British India in 1947, which fashioned the trendy day nations of (largely Hindu) India and (largely Muslim) Pakistan.
The two nations have been at warfare 3 times along with ongoing army engagements over the disputed territorial standing of the Kashmir area.
“In my view, Pakistan should be able to play in India and come for the World Cup because cricketers are not terrorists, cricketers don’t represent their government, they just play a sport,” Guha stated.
Pakistan haven’t performed a match in India outdoors of ICC tournaments since 2013, and Pakistani cricketers have been excluded from the profitable Indian Premier League because the second season, following the 2008 Mumbai assaults.
Khawaja, born in Islamabad earlier than transferring to Australia as a toddler, is a religious and practising Muslim.
India’s ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party have been criticised for his or her “Hindutva” ideology of Hindu nationalism and for systematically discriminating towards Muslims, which type India’s largest minority group.
News Corp understands that Khawaja’s visa software was submitted in early January, through the Sydney Test, and he was the one member of Australia’s touring occasion to not have his visa processed.
It isn’t the primary time Khawaja has struggled with visas to India, together with his passport being withheld in 2020 forward of an ODI tour, in addition to a heated debacle in 2011 forward of the now-defunct Champions League T20 event.
Cricket Australia and Cricket NSW had been pressured to petition the Indian High Commission to reverse their determination to refuse Khawaja a visa, after an Indian diplomatic staffer insisted his software needed to be made with a Pakistani passport moderately than his Australian one.
At the time, an incensed Khawaja vented his frustration with the state of affairs, tweeting “Indian visa department need to sort their issues out.
“Refusing to let me travel to India as an Australian, because I wasn’t born here. Wow,” he wrote.
Responding to Portugese-born teammate Moises Henriques’ queries, he replied: “It wasn’t that I wasn’t born here but where I was.”
Guha went on to lash out on the BCCI’s dealing with of the Ahmedabad Test and the Indian cricket media, after News Corp reported that travelling Australian followers had been denied tickets for the primary day’s play in favour of tickets put aside for a political rally that featured Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“It is deeply upsetting, and also upsetting that it took an Australian writer (News Corp’s Peter Lalor) to point this out,” he stated.
“This is well known among Indian cricket writers, but no Indian cricket journalist or website had the courage or decency to write about this.”
Guha’s interview with The Wire got here after he wrote an opinion column in Kolkata day by day newspaper The Telegraph, the place he criticised the scheduling of the fourth Test in Ahmedabad in any respect, blaming Prime Minister Modi’s want for a diplomatic present of financial drive within the 132,000 capability Narendra Modi Stadium.
Ahmedabad is the most important metropolis in Gujarat, the house state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“It was only in Gujurat that the demands of the personality cult could have been adequately satisfied,” he wrote.
Guha additionally appeared on The Grade Cricketer podcast, telling hosts Sam Perry and Ian Higgins that the scheduling was “scandalous” and “an outrage”.
“It’s like Sydney and Melbourne not getting a Test match, and Alice Springs and Darwin hosting two of your Test matches,” he stated.
Guha additionally criticised ex-players for being complicit in avoiding criticism of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
“India has become the big bully of world cricket, and the IPL has allowed it,” he stated.
“Many ex-cricketers, including Australian cricketers, are part of this, because they want contracts to commentate on the IPL.
“There was a scandal in Ahmedabad earlier this week because there weren’t any tickets available for the first day because (Prime Minister) Mr Modi a captive audience, there was a pushback on social media, but no cricketer talked about it.
“Don’t (Ricky) Ponting and Michael Clarke, and (Matthew) Hayden and the others care about fans? Australian fans?”
Source: www.news.com.au
