Sorry. We’ve been focusing on the wrong opening batsman for the past week. All the attention paid to Dave Warner meant we were distracted from the far more significant cricketer at the other end of the pitch: Usman Khawaja.

A feature of “Warner Week” was Dave’s missing caps, which reappeared as mysteriously as they vanished. Cap-gate upstaged Uzzy’s shoes and shirtsleeves, which have become the most discussed items of cricketing clothing since hairy-chested Dennis Lillee’s plunging neckline.

Usman Khawaja wears a black armband in “personal bereavement” for children killed in Gaza, in the first Test against Pakistan.Credit: Getty Images

But now the International Cricket Council, which stands proudly in the grand tradition of sporting bodies that break all dozen eggs in the carton in making a two-egg omelette, has put Khawaja’s kit back in the spotlight. For the ICC has rejected Khawaja’s appeal against a reprimand for wearing a black armband during the Test against Pakistan in Perth last month. Despite fears about the future of Test cricket, the ICC has got its priorities right, squelching one player’s freedom of expression.

To recap (no, we’re not back with Warner): Khawaja wore the armband after being refused permission to wear cricket shoes on which he’d written, in small but legible letters in the colours of the Palestine flag, “All lives........

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