West Indies skipper Jason Holder on Tuesday (October 20) expressed his disappointment over international teams dropping the practice of taking a knee to protest against racial discrimination during the English cricket season.
The Caribbean side arrived in England in June amid the COVID-19 lockdown and played three Tests behind closed doors.
During England’s home series against West Indies and Ireland, players from both teams took a knee to show their solidarity towards the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign but the move was abandoned during subsequent series against Pakistan and Australia.
Earlier, West Indies pace legend Michael Holding criticised the lack of support towards BLM movement from other teams and Holder felt let down as well.
See Also: ECB reacts to Michael Holding's criticism over BLM movement
"I was following a little bit of what Michael Holding was saying regarding the Pakistan and Australia tours, which followed ours," Holder told the CWC website. "It's difficult to be able to get people to see the importance of it, and that's where the education has to be filtered through.
"It's really important people understand where we as black people are coming from, and understand the harsh reality of how the world is set up. There are inequalities out there, some of them are very much in our faces, some are done discretely, but there are inequalities and I think it's just a level of education.
"I personally was a bit disappointed to see how the Pakistan and Australia tours went on after us and they're not showing their solidarity. But it's a long debate, a long hard challenge, a long road, we as people need to continue to come together, put our minds together and genuinely find ways to fix the inequalities in the world.
"It's not an overnight fix, this is something that is going to be ongoing for maybe a number of years. But I think the most important thing is that we need to come together, we need to see each other as all equal human beings and treat each other that way, and be your brother's keeper in this world."
Holder, who is currently in UAE with the Sunrisers Hyderabad squad, also finds it “sad” that there is no acknowledgment of BLM movement in this year’s IPL.
"To be honest I haven't had one conversation up here around it," he said. "Sometimes it seems it has gone unnoticed, which is a sad thing. I guess it's for us to re-highlight the importance of it, for people to understand what is happening in the world.
"Covid has obviously caused a lot of attention around it, there's suddenly a lot of attention on the elections in America as well, too. But for us, particularly as black people in the Caribbean, a black-dominant society, it's for us to continue the education.
"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."
