Michael Holding, who is certainly among the greatest of fast bowlers the game has ever seen, has come up with a bizarre accusation against the England, Pakistan and Australian teams for not bending the knee before every game in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Yes, the Black Lives Matter movement started because of a tragedy. It invited worldwide condemnation. In the immediate aftermath, a lot of sportsmen did bend their knee in support of the movement. It involved men and women of all colour and race. The cricketers too did not excuse themselves from the movement. The famous picture during the first test between England and West Indies will be etched in the minds of every cricket fan. Considering all of these, does Holding even makes sense regarding BLM?
Holding’s comments
“All over the world it was no longer a black versus white thing, it was a matter of humanity coming together and deciding ‘listen, we need everyone to be treated equally’,” Holding told Sky.
“So for Pakistan and England not to then take that signal … the ECB came out with a lame statement as far as I’m concerned, and I didn’t hear anything at all about Pakistan, neither the players, nor the board.”
“Now Australia come here and I see another lame statement from the Australia captain who is saying that he and the England captain have spoken and they decided not to take a knee.”
As far as Holding is concerned, this is a movement that must be kept alive forever. Maybe he is correct but it does not mean that every player, umpires, groundsmen, support staff will have to bend their knee during the start of every game. It is absolute nonsense. Fortunately or unfortunately, there aren’t any spectators in the stadiums these days due to the pandemic. In the future, when the stadiums are packed with spectators, some 30,000 of them, will Holding want everyone to bend their knee? If he wants that, that will be like taking the entire movement to the extreme. From the comments of Holding, it looks like he wants every player to bend their knee in support of the movement. Whether they like to do that or not is immaterial to Holding.
He will have to learn to let it go. An untoward incident happened. There were protests in large parts of the world. Knees were bent throughout sporting events and that should have been that. It is utter stupidity on the part of Holding to even suggest that everyone will have bend their knee before the start of every game.
Dhoni and the army gloves
ICC must step into this and must ensure that this does not take place anymore. They must categorically state that this is only a sport and that politics must not come into the sport. If they fail to do so, it will be clear that there are double standards in the international game. Just over a year ago, Dhoni was asked to remove the army gloves that he was wearing because the ICC said that this was against the rules of the game. The ICC states that regulations for ICC events did not permit messages to be shown on clothing or equipment and added that the logo also breached regulations about what was permitted on wicketkeeper gloves. The logo in Dhoni’s gloves depicted a commando dagger, is known as the Balidaan (sacrifice) badge in India.
If a simple logo was a political message, certainly a grand movement is also a political message. If Black Lives Matter, doesn’t the Lives of Indian Soldiers matter too? When one is wrong, the other is also wrong.
South African chaos
If Holding wants every player to bend their knee before every game in support of BLM, will he also speak about the happenings in South Africa? The entire South African cricket community is split among different groups after Lungi Ngidi expressed his support for BLM. Ofcourse, being a black, he was well within his rights to support the movement but South Africa’s former players have not taken kindly to that.
Conclusion
Nowadays, it seems that if you are not supporting a movement, you are considered to be against that movement. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground. This is absolutely ridiculous. Bending a knee or not bending a knee is the prerogative of an individual. It doesn’t mean that the players who do not, does not care about others. It could be that they prefer not to show. They do not want the whole world to see that they do care about others.
The players are only that, players. They are simple people whose only ambition in their life is to play for their country. The players must not be converted into pawns in a political game.
Holding will do well to realise that not only black lives, all lives matter and that includes animals too.
What do you think? Is Holding justified in wanting players bend their knee before every game? Is Holding justified in continuing with Black Lives Matter on the cricket field?