The Indian Premier League (IPL) is certainly the most glamorous Twenty20 (T20) league in the world, as it presents several social campaigns that help in breaking barriers, besides the flawless cricket. However, Windies's Jason Holder has expressed his displeasure at a particular campaign, which is missing from the prestigious tournament.
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Holder, who represents Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in IPL 2020, has said that it hurts him to see the 'Black Lives Matter' campaign not being promoted in the world-famous T20 league. Holder spoke on the issue while receiving the Peter Smith Award for the Windies team, by the Cricket Writers’ Club.
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“To be honest, I haven’t had one conversation up here around it (BLM). Sometimes, it seems it has gone unnoticed, which is a sad thing. I guess it’s for us to re-highlight the importance of it, for people to understand what is happening in the world,” Holder told Cricket Windies (CWI).
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“COVID-19 has obviously caused a lot of attention around it, there’s suddenly a lot of attention on the elections in America as well, too. But for us, particularly as black people in the Caribbean, a black-dominant society, it’s for us to continue the education," he added.
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“Cricket West Indies has done an excellent job in continuing awareness of it. The women had a series in England where they wore the Black Lives Matter logo and continued to push the movement as well,” he voiced.
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The BLM campaign came into the limelight a few months back after a black American citizen, George Floyd, was inadvertently killed by a police officer owing to negligence while the former was being arrested. The issue led to severe backlash from the black people in the United States Of America (USA), as the BLM campaign spread to the entire world, with many renowned personalities coming out in open support for it.
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The BLM campaign involves sitting on a knee and raising a hand in the air, in support of it. In cricket, it was followed during the Windies tour of England, a couple of months back. However, after the tour was over, the succeeding tours did not follow the campaign.
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“I personally was a bit disappointed to see how the Pakistan and Australia tours went on after us and they’re not showing their solidarity. But, it’s a long debate, a long hard challenge, a long road. We as people need to continue to come together, put our minds together and genuinely find ways to fix the inequalities in the world,” Holder continued.
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“It’s not an overnight fix. This is something that is going to be ongoing for maybe a number of years. But, I think the most important thing is that we need to come together, we need to see each other as all equal human beings and treat each other that way, and be your brother’s keeper in this world," he concluded.
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