Black Lives Matter has gone unnoticed in IPL: Holder

Holder, who is member of Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL, made the statement while receiving the prestigious Peter Smith Award on behalf of the West Indies cricket team in a virtual ceremony organised by the Cricket Writers' Club.

Dubai: West Indies captain Jason Holder has expressed his disappointment over none of the IPL teams taking a knee in solidarity with the “Black Lives Matter” movement, which, he feels, has gone unnoticed in the world’s most glamorous cricket league.

Holder, who is member of Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL, made the statement while receiving the prestigious Peter Smith Award on behalf of the West Indies cricket team in a virtual ceremony organised by the Cricket Writers’ Club.

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The Peter Smith Award is an annual honour which recognises outstanding contribution to the presentation of cricket to the public.

“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,” Holder said in his address posted on Cricket West Indies website.

“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 added.

Taking a knee as a gesture of support to BLM started in the West Indies’ Test series in England this summer. It followed the global furore over African American George Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis.

But it was later discontinued for the subsequent tours of Pakistan and Australia.
“…it’s a long debate, a long hard challenge, a long road. We as people need to continue to come together…and genuinely find ways to fix the inequalities in the world,” Holder said.