Sikandar Raza named player of the tournament and delivers a stunning ‘painful reminder’ acceptance speech

Zimbabwe all rounder Sikandar Raza has been named man of the tournament at the just ended ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2018 in that country.

But it was his acceptance speech that caught the attention of the world as he said:

I think this trophy will serve as a painful reminder of the dreams that we had and we couldn’t get it done. This trophy will also serve as a reminder for the 15 million dreams that we crushed. When I started playing cricket, I thought it was to unite countries, players of different background coming together to play this beautiful sport. Unfortunately, you’ll see that’s not going to happen in next year’s World Cup. It’s certainly quite a tough pill to swallow. This trophy will also serve as a reminder of the hard work that Peter Borren and his Dutch players, Kyle Coetzer and his Scottish players, Rohan Mustafa and his UAE players, and all the other countries that came and couldn’t make it to the World Cup.

Watch the full video below:

I've never heard a player from a Full Member nation stand up for the Associate cause and rail against the 10-team World Cup in 2019 with such fierce emotion as Sikandar Raza did just now, that too with David Richardson standing 20 feet away. Must watch speech. Bravo @SRazaB24. pic.twitter.com/mxmiZA46JF
— Peter Della Penna (@PeterDellaPenna) March 25, 2018