Aussie cricket captain backs player’s Gaza messages on shoes, bat

Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins is backing star opener Usman Khawaja over bid to bring attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was “not offensive”.

Khawaja has been denied permission by the International Cricket Council to have a sticker showing a black dove holding an olive branch on his bat and shoes during the second Test against Pakistan.

The 36-year-old, a Muslim, was stopped from wearing shoes emblazoned with the hand-written slogans “Freedom is a human right” and “All lives are equal” during the first Test in Perth.

The Council said they flouted its rules on messages that relate to politics, religion or race.

“We really support Uzzy. He’s standing up for what he believes and I think he’s done it really respectfully,” Cummins tells reporters on the eve of the Test in Melbourne.

“As I said last week, ‘All lives are equal’, I don’t think that’s very offensive and I’d say the same about the dove,” he adds. “That’s Uzzy. I think he can really hold his head high with the way he’s gone about it.”

But he adds that the International Cricket Council is unlikely to okay the message.

“They make up the rules and you’ve got to accept it.”