Usman Khawaja raise his voice as he was forced to removed dove logo from his bat

Australia's opening batter in Tests, Usman Khawaja was forced to remove the Dove logo, a universal logo for love and peace from his cricket bat. He came out to bat in the ongoing day 3 as he remained unbeaten at the end of Day 2 (March 1). Meanwhile, in the 19th over of Australia's second innings, the left-hander was forced to remove the logo from his bat.

Notably, he put this logo during the home series against Pakistan a few months back. The Queensland player was intent on raising humanitarian crisis awareness in Gaza, Palestine. However, when he decided to do so, he didn't get permission as he wasn't using the same logo but his messaging was directly indicating the crisis.

As per the rules of the Apex Council, political messaging isn't allowed for the players. Meanwhile, despite the Apex Council's strictness, Khawaja got support from his captain, Pat Cummins, and Cricket Australia chief executive, Nick Hockley a few months back.

“The symbol of the dove is an universally recognised symbol of peace," Hockley explained in December. “That being said, the Apex Council have got their rules and think they explained their rationale really clearly and we respect that. What we’ve been really clear about is that we support Uzzie and all our players really to share what the what they believe over their own channels."

“We really support Uzzy, I think he’s standing up for what he believes and I think he’s doing it really respectfully. All lives are equal and I don’t think that’s very offensive, and I’d say the same about the dove.

Usman Khawaja didn't have the best of games with the bat against New Zealand

Meanwhile, the 35-year-old failed to score a fifty in either innings of the ongoing first Test against New Zealand in Wellington. However, his team took a first-innings lead of 204, only for the home side to bowl out Australia for 164. The former Test Champions are asked to chase 369 and they are 106/3 at the time of writing.