Pakistan-origin Australian opener Usman Khawaja has accused security personnel at the team hotel (unspecified) of racial profiling even when he was wearing the Australian kit. Khawaja revealed the racial profiling abuse in reply to an Indian sports journalist Bharat Sundaresan's tweet.
The journalist shared that he had been harassed multiple times at cricket venues around Australia with the latest one being at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) where the Boxing Day Test between Australia and South Africa is scheduled to be played.
The journalist tweeted: “To all you wonderful security personnel at cricket venues around Australia. This is my fifth summer here. At some point you have to stop jumping on me, questioning my credentials, talking down to me & asking each other if “we can trust him?”. Like it or not, I’m here to stay”.
Khawaja shared his experience in reply as he tweeted, “You get use to it. I got stopped 3 times last year at our hotel, while in Australian Kit and asked if I was with the Australian Cricket team...”
Unfortunately, Khawaja tried to see the lighter side of the issue as he wrote that he has gotten used to it now.
The 36-year-old is currently a part of Australian Test side and will open alongside David Warner who will be playing his 100th Test. The southpaw made his Test debut in 2011 and became the first Muslim cricketer to play for Australia.
So far, he has played 54 Tests and scored 3,966 runs at an average of 46.11 including 12 centuries and 19 half-centuries.
Last year in an interview Khawaja had shared the mentality of people when he had started playing cricket.
“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 Islamabad-born cricketer had told ESPNCricinfo.
