NZ v AUS 2024: Usman Khawaja forced to remove black dove sticker from his bat during Wellington Test

ICC had rejected Khawaja's request to display the dove symbol on his bat last December.

Australian batter Usman Khawaja was forced to remove the dove logo from his bat on Day 3 of the ongoing first Test against New Zealand in Wellington.

During the opening session of the day, Khawaja cracked his bat shortly after Australia resumed their second innings on 13/2 and signalled for a replacement of his willow.

Substitute Matthew Renshaw brought a couple of bats into the ground. After testing out a few, Khawaja settled on one but the southpaw was asked to remove the human rights sticker of a dove holding an olive branch from it.

During Australia's home Test series against Pakistan last December, the International Cricket Council (ICC) had rejected Khawaja’s appeal to display the dove symbol on his bat in the Boxing Day Test to show solidarity with Palestine in the ongoing Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.

This was preceded by the ICC charging the Aussie opener for sporting a black armband during the series opener for breaching equipment regulations.

Khawaja later accused the apex body of double standards through a social media post over declining his request for dove logo. “Merry Christmas everybody. Sometimes you just gotta laugh. CYA at Boxing Day!” he wrote, along with the hashtags “inconsistent” and “double standards”.

Amidst all this, the left-hander found support from Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley and the Australian skipper Pat Cummins.

“The symbol of the dove is an universally recognised symbol of peace," Hockley said in December. “That being said, the ICC have got their rules and think they explained their rationale really clearly and we respect that. What we’ve been really clear about is that we support Uzzie and all our players really to share what the what they believe over their own channels."

Coming to the Willington Test, Usman Khawaja scored 28 in Australia’s second innings on Saturday (March 2). On the other hand, the visitors’ innings folded for 164, setting a target of 369 for the Kiwis on the back of a 204-run lead in the first innings.

New Zealand ended the third day at 111/3 with Rachin Ravindra (56*) and Daryl Mitchell (12*) unbeaten in the middle, needing 258 more runs with seven wickets in hand to win the match.