The Australian men’s team plans to form a barefoot circle that recognizes Aboriginal Australia prior to every series they play, starting with the ODI games against India later this month when Vice-Captain Pat Cummins admitted that the best-known international sports team was the Nation had fallen behind in its recognition and education about racial injustice.
The Barefoot Circle is a statement that Australian cricket broadly takes to connect with Aboriginal culture and the land where games are played, and that has already been adopted by the U.S. Women’s National Team , WBBL clubs and, more recently, the state teams at Sheffield Shield last week.
Cummins said that while individual players were free to make their own statements, including a knee, the Barefoot Circle was seen as the best way for the team to acknowledge their role in fighting racism both at home and on around the world doing this has a lot of work to do.
“We chose the Barefoot Circle. We’ll take care of it at the beginning of each series, and it’s a pretty easy decision for us. Once you try to learn a little about it, it’s just becomes a really easy decision. Don’t.” only as a sport, but we as humans are absolutely against racism, “said Cummins. “We can probably put our hands up and say that we haven’t done enough in the past and that we want to get better. This is a little thing that we’re going to introduce this summer.
“We will also try to do a lot of work on our education. We will try to learn as much as possible about our history here in Australia, especially in the future, and look forward to doing the Barefoot Circle.” I thought last week’s NAIDOC week at Sheffield Shield was a pretty powerful opening day and there were a lot of great acts in the WBBL too. “
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When asked why the team didn’t get on their knees in talks with national coach Justin Langer and ODI and T20I captain Aaron Finch, as England and the West Indies did earlier this year, Cummins said there was a strong one Desire Specifically, acknowledge the Native Australians and the need for cricket to make up for bad emphasis on history.
“I think the most obvious was in Australia. We believe the most marginalized group is the First Nations and the indigenous peoples, and we think the Barefoot Circle is a great way to celebrate them,” said Cummins. “Some people might want to take the knee, others want to show it in different ways and absolutely we are all for it, but we came together as a team and we think this is the best way to demonstrate anti.” -Racism as well as celebrating indigenous culture here.
“It’s something that we’ve talked about and that allows anyone to do a particular demonstration, whether it’s a knee or whatever it is. We’ll be 100% supportive of them. I think everything is going well to the idea that racism exists and we want it. ” Do our contribution to stop this and try to get better. I think everyone will do it their own way, but we’ve talked about everyone being absolutely aboard the Barefoot Circle and I’m not sure anyone will take it any further. “
Ian Chappell, the former Australian captain and commentator, said that in his view the decision to take a knee must be made individually, with the team’s responsibility being to ensure that no player is detrimental in selection or in other terms will be judged if he chooses to make a strong statement to the world this summer.
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“My personal opinion is that if I played now I would do something, whether it took a knee or not, I would let them know that things need to be improved,” Chappell told ESPNcricinfo. “As the captain, I think it’s a very individual thing and I would call the team together and say ‘Okay, what do you want to do’ and if it was all ‘we kneel’ then fine. We all kneel. But if some of them wanted to and not others, I would say, “Okay, you do what you have to do and it’s an individual decision, but you won” No flak for this decision “.
“If I went that route before I made it public I would go to the board of directors and say, ‘Look, this is the situation, some players are going to take a knee and some are not and I don’t. that someone will be punished for taking a knee. If that happens there is a problem. I think this is really important because you don’t want guys to suddenly disappear from the team for taking a stand. “
Chappell believes that Australian cricket needs to be more open to acknowledging that too many potential supporters of the game do not see cricket as a sport for them, as the top tier of the game fails far too often to accommodate the diversity of the national team.
“Much has been done recently to attract Aboriginal people to the game,” he said. “I don’t think Australia took advantage of this opportunity until recently, but since then there have been real attempts to improve that situation. It is a very diverse country and there is no doubt that cricket does not yet reflect that diversity.
“If you want to fully rely on the Anglo heritage, you will get into trouble on the track. I think this is really the first step. The kids who go to cricket need to look at the field and see diversity Thanks to the BBL and the WBBL, they see more because players are coming from overseas, but I think that’s an important part of the process. “
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