Mumbai Indians allrounder Hardik Pandya took a knee in Sunday’s game against the Rajasthan Royals as part of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Pandya scored a scintillating 60 off 21 balls and after reaching his half-century on the penultimate ball of the innings with a six, he went down on a knee with his right arm raised and signalled towards the Mumbai dugout to which stand-in captain Kieron Pollard responded with a raised right fist.
Pandya posted a picture of his gesture on his Twitter and Instagram accounts after the match with the caption, “BlackLivesMatter”.
#BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/yzUS1bWh7F
— hardik pandya (@hardikpandya7) October 25, 2020
Cricket joined hands with the BLM for the first time when the West Indies team took a knee on their tour of England this summer. Many players started talking about racism in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in the USA in March earlier this year and, after Daren Sammy opened up about possible references to the colour of skin during the IPL in 2013 and 2014, the movement picked up momentum during the CPL in the Caribbean as all teams took a knee before the first three games of the tournament.
ALSO READ: Kagiso Rabada: I have a ‘social responsibility’ to fight for ‘right causes’
More recently, Jason Holder, who is playing for the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL, said to the Cricket Writers Club that he had not seen any discussion about BLM in the IPL which he found “sad.”
The latest tournament to officially see a team take the knee is the WBBL in Australia where the Sydney Thunder decided to show the gesture throughout the tournament. On Sunday, the opening day of the WBBL, the Adelaide Strikers and the Hobart Hurricanes took the knee and the Thunder would have done the same had their match against the Sydney Sixers not been washed out.