Why is QDK not playing today

Picture Credit: Twitter

In a huge news coming in concerning the South Africa cricket team, it is being learned that Proteas star Quinton de Kock made himself unavailable for selection due to his stand on the Black Lives Matter movement. While Cricket South Africa (CSA) has issued a directive prior to this match that the South Africa team must collectively take a knee pre-game, De Kock had failed to do the same in their previous matches.

Later, South Africa captain Temba Bavuma declared at the toss that De Kock had made himself unavailable for selection due to personal reasons. The Black Lives Matter movement is a movement to educate and spread awareness about the ways in which racism continues to severely affect black lives around the world.

Cannot shed the colour of my skin: Pommie Mbangwa

Broadcasters Pommie Mbangwa and Darren Sammy, both of whom represent the black community, expressed their views on the issue on-air.

"Lack of support for the initiative essentially means lack of support for people of colour within the team, in South Africa and in the world as a whole. Excuse me if I sound Political, but I can't shed my skin," Pommie said on commentary.

"As my mother always said, you've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything," Sammy stated in view of the same events.

CSA confirms De Kock's decision

In the latest update, Cricket South Africa have confirmed on De Kock's decision. They have agreed that the wicketkeeper batter did make himself unavailable as he did not want to take a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Notably, he did not take the knee in the team's first match against Australia.

Talking about the ongoing match, South Africa opted to bowl first and have kept the West Indies scoring at check even though they haven't got as many wickets in the first half of the innings as they would have liked. This is a huge game for both the teams since both of them are heading into this after a loss in their respective previous matches.

A defeat here would make it 2 losses in a row for the losing team and would make their semifinal qualification equation very difficult from here.