Cricket Australia’s announcement of the international fixtures for the 2023/24 home season was met with great excitement. However, once again, Australian superstar Ashleigh Gardner has criticized the board for scheduling a game on January 26, expressing her discontent.
Earlier this year, Ashleigh Gardner publicly criticized Cricket Australia for scheduling a Women’s Twenty20 International (W-T20I) on Australia Day (January 26). She characterized the day as one marked by genocide, massacres, and dispossession in relation to Indigenous Australians.
The proud Muruwari woman, said to CODE Sports, “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’s scheduling manager, Peter Roach, acknowledged that Australia Day holds diverse meanings, especially for Indigenous Australians. He defended the scheduling decision, stating that extensive consultations were conducted, including discussions with the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cricket Advisory Committee (NATSICAC).
Australian women’s team skipper, Meg Lanning, expressed her support for her teammate Ashleigh Gardner and acknowledged that the scheduling of a game on Australia Day is a “very sensitive issue for a lot of people.” Lanning also mentioned that the scheduling decisions are a little bit out of the control of the player’s hands.
The NRL Grand Final overlapping with the opening game of the cricket summer season (AUS-W vs WI-W) has raised concerns about audience division. Meg Lanning had a no-nonsense take on the issue, stating, “We’ve done that for a number of years now on that day. On a weekend makes a lot of sense.”
(Quotes sourced from news.com.au)
