England players will take their knees in their first clash of the T20 World Cup against West Indies, captain Eoin Morgan has confirmed. The move has come in the aftermath of West Indies captain Kieron Pollard announcing that Windies players will take a knee in the tournament.
“We have heard from the West Indies that they will be taking a knee and we will be joining them for the first game,” Morgan said on Tuesday.
England were quick to support the ‘Black Lives Matter’ and took knees during the West Indies tour of England last summer but abandoned the gesture afterwards.
Morgan said that the England team will take a knee in the first game and will carry on with their usual ‘moment of unity’ gesture going ahead in the tournament. He said that the ICC is yet to give its go-ahead for the gesture in during the tournament.
“Games going on from there, we’ve been speaking to the ICC about the potential moment of unity before the game that we’ve been doing as part of our own piece at home,” Morgan added. “It hasn’t been cleared up whether that’s a possibility yet.”
Notably, Pollard had asked other teams to genuinely stand up the the issues of racism and take the knee instead of doing such gesture just because West Indies are doing that.
England and West Indies will open their campaign on October 23.