Holding slams ICC as Khawaja is denied permission to have peace symbol on bat

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Australia's Usman Khawaja has been denied permission to place a peace symbol on his bat and shoes for the Boxing Day Test against Pakistan, reports said Sunday.

A sticker showing a black dove and the words 01:UDHR -- a reference to Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- was on his bat and shoes during training in Melbourne on Sunday.

The star batter had multiple meetings with Cricket Australia over recent days to find a message that would be appropriate for the second Test this week, local media said.

But his latest humanitarian gesture has been turned down by the International Cricket Committee, The Australian and Melbourne Age newspapers reported.

Controversy arose when Khawaja was prevented from donning shoes that featured the statements 'All lives are equal' and 'Freedom is a human right' during the Test match in Perth.

Meanwhile, in an interview with The Weekend Australian, Michael Holding expressed his lack of surprise regarding the ICC's stance on the Khawaja situation.

“I have been following the Khawaja fiasco and I cannot say I’m surprised by the ICC’s stance," Holding said.

“If it had been most other organisations that showed some semblance of consistency with their attitude and behaviour on issues I could claim surprise, but not them. Once again, they show their hypocrisy and lack of moral standing as an organization,” he added.

Holding went on to criticize the ICC's regulations, pointing out discrepancies that allowed players to take a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement before matches. He questioned the approval process for such actions, as the ICC regulations explicitly state that approval shall not be granted for messages related to political, religious, or racial activities or causes. Holding raised the issue of how players were allowed to take the knee for BLM and even have stumps covered with LGBTQ colors despite these apparent contradictions in the regulations.

“The ICC regulations say re messaging ‘approval shall not be granted for messages which relate to political, religious or racial activities or causes’. So how the f*** people were allowed to take the knee for BLM and stumps were covered with LGBTQ colours?” questioned Holding.