The 34-year-old has openly admitted that he was subject to racist comments when he was young and pursuing his dream of playing cricket for Australia.
Khawaja was born in Islamabad but moved to Australia with his parents as a five-year-old. The left-hander made his international debut in a Test match against England in January 2011, and he became the first-ever Muslim to don the Australian jersey in any format. He subsequently went on to make his OID debut in 2013 and T20I debut in 2016.
However, the 34-year-old has now opened up on how he was constantly told that he will never represent Australia as he was not of the right skin colour. The number of racist comments he has faced when he was young was ‘immense’.
“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,“
he was quoted saying to ESPNCricinfo in an interview.
Khawaja admits that things are a lot better now, and the mentality of everyone around has started to shift. He does see quite a few players from the subcontinental background emerge in the Australian cricketing circles. And that wasn’t the case when Khawaja was coming through the ranks in the Australian domestic circuit as he was the only one.
“It is a lot better now. I see a lot more cricketers coming up through state levels in Australia in particular that are from subcontinent backgrounds, which we really did not see when I came up, even when I played.
I was playing domestic cricket and I was the only subcontinent player there. At the moment there’s only probably myself and a few others,“
Khawaja further added.
