Dove Actually

Usman Khawaja and the ICC’s gormless aversion to ‘controversy’

Gideon Haigh

For many years the world’s longest-running stage comedy was a farce called No Sex Please, We’re British, its jollity deriving from the idea that the more the characters tried to avoid the subject, the more they became implicated, and the greater the comic complications.  Cricket has its own enduring counterpart: No Politics Please, We’re the ICC.  Its hilarious premise is that the International Cricket Council is charged with preventing the game’s contamination by ill-defined but somehow always untoward political influence.  This has now extended to…checks notes…a fucking dove.

You may already have seen this dove, which Usman Khawaja had wanted to wear on his shoes in this Boxing Day Test, in recognition of the ghastly toll of hostilities in the Middle East, especially where children have been the victims.  Even by the standard of doves, it’s soft, innocent and gently rounded.  In its beak it grasps a twig from an olive tree.  As a symbol of peace it makes a V-sign look like an aggressive middle finger.  It refers to Article 1 of the venerable United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.  They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.’  

Cricket Australia is OK with it.  The Australian Cricketers’ Association too.  Khawaja’s captain has been publicly supportive; his teammates are on side; opponents Pakistan have raised no concerns.  But the ICC argues that it, and the black armband Khawaja wore during the First Test, infringe an obscure and inconsistently applied ‘clause F’ of its clothing and equipment regulations.  ‘Personal messages of this nature are not allowed as per clause F of the clothing and equipment Regulations, which can be found on the ICC playing conditions page,’ muttered one of those faceless and nameless ICC spokespersons.

As we know, most sporting bodies of significance blanch where ‘politics’ is concerned. Despite themselves being inherently political organisations, they would prefer their participants be neutral banners for the projection of lucrative corporate messages.  Yet you would have expected the ICC’s spokesperson to have taken the trouble to consult their own regulations, because the relevant clause is not F but G: ‘Approval shall not be granted for messages which relate to political, religious or racial activities or causes. The ICC shall have the final say in determining whether any such message is approved.’  And even then, this clause is unrelated to the five purposes of the regulation, enunciated in Clause A which are: 

a) To ensure a consistent approach and to treat all Member Boards equally;

b) To ensure professional and appropriate standards of appearance of players and team officials;

c) To protect the sponsorship rights of ICC and its Member Boards (including from ambush marketing);

d) To allow an opportunity for players to obtain some revenue from controlled bat advertising;

e) To prohibit advertising connected with betting and/or gaming.

As I read it, Khawaja’s action does not infringe any of these, which are explicitly commercial protections.  So the relevant lines in Clause G have the appearance of an additional, gratuitous imposition - an afterthought in search of a rationale or justification.  The regulations also allow explicitly for an ‘Approved Personal Message’ in the form of a ‘non-commercial logo’ that does not undermine ‘the professional standards that are required of all elite players.’  One must assume the ICC is comfortable with the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, given that the council has for the last eight years been a partner of the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund in a corporate social responsibility programme called Cricket 4 Good. So what gives?

Usman has been left wondering.  He posted on Instagram a video of instances of the ICC turning a blind eye to apparent infringements of its clothing regulations by playing contemporaries, hashtagged ‘double standards’.  Yet he needn’t have stopped there: this is the same ICC that looked away as the Board of Control for Cricket in India demonstrated its pathetic thraldom to the Modi government by seeking to turn the recent World Cup into a party political billboard.  In fact, one wonders if the BCCI has a fair say over the ICC’s position in this imbroglio: after all, its grubby fingerprints are all over everything else.  Free speech warriors, eh?  Never round when you need them... 

So here we are - another minor issue fanned into a significant one by, perversely, the ICC’s gormless aversion to ‘controversy’.  Suddenly you find yourself thinking about ICC’s unattractive proximity to members like China, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and palling around with the world’s worst polluter, even as it objects to a cricketer embossing his shoes with a dove despite being unable to cite any principle infringed or individual offended.

Time has now run out: the Test has commenced, Khawaja has gone out to bat in his spotless, politically neutral footwear, obediently spruiking Toyota, ASICS and HCLTech instead, and, like bank employee Ronnie Corbett in No Sex Please confronted by the growing piles of pornography misaddressed to his home, the ICC and CA will be hoping it all goes away.  

It shouldn’t. Usman should be free to wear his symbol, which would do no harm, might conceivably lead to a little good, and which in terms of its proposed design is frankly anodyne - if we cannot acquiesce in the proposition that the violent deaths of children in a war zone is a tragedy then there is no hope for humanity.  

If the ICC is then stupid enough to penalise Usman, CA should pay the fine.  After all, CA had no trouble two years ago unilaterally severing our bilateral relationship with Afghanistan - a considerably greater defiance of the ICC.  I know we’ve all lost such interest as we had in the ICC being other than a busted arse.  But, to borrow a political slogan, if not now when and if not us who?