Crickеt Australia apologisеs for racial remark used for Pakistan on day one of practice game
Pakistan are playing a tour game against the Australian Prime Minister’s XI at Manuka Oval
Cricket Australia (CA) has acknowledged an error in their live score ticker, which led to the display of a racist term during Pakistan’s tour match in Canberra.
Pakistan is currently on a tour of Australia for three Test matches, part of the 2023-25 World Test Championship and the Benaud-Qadir Trophy. Before the series, they are playing a tour game against the Australian Prime Minister’s XI at Manuka Oval.
In this match, Pakistan’s new captain, Shan Masood, won the toss and chose to bat first, with Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq as the opening batters
The live telecast of the match featured a ticker where the home side was denoted by PMXI and the visiting team with an I after the commonly used PAK.
This caused concern as the representation using the four-letter word P*** is a derogatory slur towards people of Pakistani and broader South Asian descent. The term is offensive in many regions, and the Oxford Dictionary classifies it as such.
Australian cricket journalist Danny Saeed raised the issue, prompting Cricket Australia to rectify the display to ‘PAK’. The board swiftly issued a statement regarding the incident.: “The graphic was an automatic feed from a data provider which had not been used previously for a Pakistan game. This was obviously regrettable, and the error we corrected manually as soon as it came to light.”
Shan Masood starred on the opening day where the stylish left-hander scored an unbeaten century to guide his side to 324-6 at stumps on Wednesday.
Masood scored 156 runs in 235 balls with the help of 13 fours and a six. After deciding to bat first, Pakistan lost opener Imam-ul-Haq early as the left-hander edged one to wicketkeeper Jimmy Peirson on the bowling of Jordan Buckingham after scoring nine runs.
However, Abdullah Shafique and Masood added 58 runs for the second wicket before the former was dismissed by Mark Steketee after scoring 38 runs.
Star batter Babar Azam, who came in after Shafique’s dismissal, notched up 40 runs in 88 balls with the help of five fours. He added 92 runs for the third wicket with Masood.
Wicketkeeper-batter Sarfaraz Ahmed also played a brisk knock of 41 runs in 47 balls with the help of six fours.
Saud Shakeel and Faheem Ashraf scored 13 and 17 runs, respectively.
Jordan Buckingham was the pick of the bowlers for the home side with figures of 3-63 in 17 overs.
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