Usman Khawaja is one of Australia’s finest batsmen of recent times. A former ICC Test Cricketer of the Year, no less.
In the last Ashes series in England two years ago, he scored the most runs of any player on either team as the Aussies retained the urn.
But Khawaja is not a true Australian. Not if we apply the same logic shown by the stadium announcer in Perth last weekend.
Prior to kick-off in the match between Western Force and the British and Irish Lions, the announcer reeled off some wisecracks about the heritage of certain Lions players.
Reading out the team line-ups, he said: ‘The Aussie at No 14, Mack Hansen. Another Aussie at No 12, Sione Tuipulotu. The Kiwi now Irishman, James Lowe. At prop, the former South Africa schoolboy now Scotsman, Pierre Schoeman.’
In his own mind, one can only presume that he envisaged the whole thing being a source of much hilarity. In reality, it went down like a lead balloon.
His comments came after Australian head coach Joe Schmidt had made a similar jibe, albeit he later tried to row back on it.
Duhan van der Merwe and Sione Tuipulotu’s inclusion in the Lions squad has caused a stir
However, Tuipulotu qualifies for Scotland through blood – his granny is from Greenock!
To be fair, Lions great Willie John McBride had also voiced his concern with ‘foreign-born’ players in the squad.
As for Khawaja, he was born in Islamabad. When Perth’s Optus Stadium hosts the first Ashes Test later this year, will Khawaja be introduced as ‘the Pakistani Australian’?
No, of course he won’t. That would be incredibly dim-witted and disrespectful. So why are the Lions different?
Why is it suddenly open season for the Aussies to take all kinds of cheap shots and for it to be dismissed as banter?
This wasn’t Shane Warne or Glenn McGrath sledging Kevin Pietersen out at the crease over the fact he was born in South Africa.
This was someone using a public platform in a wholly irresponsible manner. A sense of humour bypass? No, because the issue runs much deeper.
We live in an age where hate speech often thrives in sport, an age where it doesn’t take much to incite a pile-on in the cesspit of social media.
Collectively, when it comes to issues of race and nationality, everyone has a duty to show respect.
Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu, for instance, has direct family lineage to Greenock thanks to his grandma.
He has as much right to play for the Lions as anyone. Scotland is in his blood.
Scotland is not in the blood of Pierre Schoeman and Duhan van der Merwe, both of whom qualify through residency, but that doesn’t make them any less of a Lion.
Likewise, Mack Hansen and James Lowe. They aren’t any less Irish than any of the other players in Andy Farrell’s squad.
The comments from the stadium announcer were crass and out of touch. They were also hypocritical.
In the current squad for the Test series against the Lions, the Wallabies have seven players who were born beyond the borders of Australia.
The Fijian-born Filipo Daugunu qualifies via residency, while their winger Harry Potter was born in England.
Tom Lynagh was born in Italy, for whom his brother Louis now plays, and raised in England.
Taniela Tupou is known as the ‘Tongan Thor’, while Hunter Paisami represented Samoa at Under-20s level. Noah Lolesio and Will Skelton were also born in New Zealand.
If we look back at the wider picture of Australian sport over the past 25 years or so, some of their most prominent figures have been born overseas.
George Gregan is one of the greatest Wallabies of all-time, the second most-capped player in Australia’s history having played 139 times. But he was born in Zambia.
Tuipulotu and Finn Russell are set to be key men Down Under against the Aussies
In his pomp, Kostya Tszyu was one of the best boxers on the planet. He was a world champion who proudly wore Australia’s colours, but he was born in Russia and represented the Soviet Union in the amateur ranks.
Ange Postecoglou was born in Greece before his parents emigrated to Australia. When he was manager of the Socceroos, can you imagine if a stadium announcer mocked him?
‘Here he is, Big Ange, all the way from Athens to Adelaide, everyone’s favourite Greek-Aussie…’
Over recent years, the Australian football team has plucked the likes of Martin Boyle and Harry Souttar — two boys born and bred in Aberdeen — away from Scotland.
Whether you like it or not, this is the reality of modern sport. The issue of nationality is no longer defined simply by hard borders and a passport.
Some people may not like that, and that’s fine. There will always be those who subscribe to the belief that sport should be the best of ours against the best of yours. No interlopers.
But those days are gone and they are not coming back. Sport is multicultural now.
So for anyone to suggest that the likes of Tuipulotu and Co somehow dilute the value of the Lions is utter nonsense.
When he was asked about those comments from the stadium announcer last weekend, Tuipulotu clearly wasn’t overly enamoured.
He sounded exasperated by the whole thing, and understandably so. The whole debate has become tiresome. As a society, we should be doing better than this.
Now, the best thing that Tuipulotu and his team-mates can do over these next few weeks is to rise above it and make the Aussies eat their words with a series whitewash.
