Cricket Australia should consider avoiding 26 January, says Usman Khawaja

Usman Khawaja says Cricket Australia should consider avoiding matches on 26 January if it is the wish of Indigenous players, after this summer’s Gabba Test was scheduled for the public holiday.

Indigenous allrounder Ashleigh Gardner has lamented the decision to schedule the men’s Gabba day-night Test against West Indies to start on 25 January. Khawaja said playing Test cricket on 26 January, though he believed the date of Australia Day should be changed, was not a problem for him personally but he preferred to defer to Indigenous Australians.

“I can only speak for myself. I don’t have an issue with it,” he told reporters. “But if First Nations people and if communities do, then I think we need to explore that and talk about it.”

Gardner previously condemned the scheduling of a women’s T20 international against Pakistan on 26 January this year.

The 26-year-old said it could put Indigenous men’s player Scott Boland in a similarly uncomfortable position and noted it would be difficult to get an elder to deliver a Welcome to Country.

“I said my opinion [this year] and I told the people that it mattered to. For this to happen again but just to the men’s side … I guess there’s certainly disappointment around it,” Gardner told News Corp.

“I just don’t understand why this one day of the year – which is a day of mourning, which doesn’t have a very good history of what happened on that day, that there needs to be cricket.

“I see sport as a celebration and entertainment and an event you want to go to. Why does there need to be something that represents something that’s quite morbid. It’s probably not overly appropriate.”

Cricket Australia scheduling manager Peter Roach cited a tight summer schedule and noted the governing body’s