IPL 2020: Hardik Pandya takes a knee for ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement after knock against RR

Hardik Pandya, on Sunday, October 25, took a knee for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement during Mumbai Indians’ (MI) match against the Rajasthan Royals (RR) at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. The right-hander was in the form of his life during the game as he smashed 60 unbeaten runs off 21 balls with the help of two fours and seven colossal hits into the stands.

He came to bat at the start of the 14th over and didn’t waste any time whatsoever to get going. The right-hander played at a strike-rate of 285.71, taking the Royals bowling to the cleaners. On the back of his stupendous efforts, MI posted a daunting 195 for the loss of five wickets in their 20 overs.

However, his knock went in vain as Steve Smith’s RR won the game by eight wickets. Ben Stokes smashed his second IPL century and guided his team over the finishing line. Coming back to Hardik, he showed his support for the BLM movement after he got to his half-century.

Here’s Hardik Pandya’s post:

#BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/yzUS1bWh7F

— hardik pandya (@hardikpandya7) October 25, 2020

As far as the BLM movement is concerned, it has been doing the rounds for quite a while. Jason Holder, who’s with the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), was, however, a bit disappointed after Pakistan and Australia’s tour of England followed by the IPL didn’t put much emphasis on the BLM saga.

“I was following a little bit of what Michael Holding was saying regarding the Pakistan and Australia tours, which followed ours. 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,” Holder had said.

“To be honest I haven’t had one conversation up here around it. 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,” Holder added.