I can understand why Hilts decided not to start a thread on this, I thought was it worth it before deciding to go ahead. The reason I did was the South Africa angle which makes this case different from the more straightforward stuff that has been debated on here before. Given that country's history, it must be a very sensitive issue and for South African sports administrators it must be like trying to walk through a minefield.
What has not drawn much comment as far as I can say is that the game De Kock pulled out of was South Africa's second game in this competition, not their first. De Kock played in the first match when South Africa took on Australia's side consisting of, I'm almost certain, eleven white men and I tried to find out if the team had taken the knee then, but all I got was this unsourced quote from Google;-
"South Africa's players have been told to take a knee ahead of their remaining games at the tournament after "concerns were raised" over their "different postures" before their defeat to Australia in Abu Dhabi on Saturday."
For me, national sporting associations are asking for trouble when they start ordering a team representing their country to make gestures like taking the knee, but it is complicated and, as mentioned earlier, something of a minefield. Take England for example, this story;-
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/crick...-knee-25310878
claims that it would not have been their first choice to take the knee at this World Cup and that they would have preferred to have worn t shirts with anti racism sentiments on them before their matches, only to be told that they were not allowed to wear clothing which has a "political" statement on it.
This brings home the futility and idiocy of claiming that any refusal to take the knee makes the team or person concerned racist - how could someone be if they're wearing a short deploring racism for the world to see? Similarly, I presume Sol Bamba has not been taking the knee before Middlesbrough games because they are one of the sides who don't make the gesture and haven't been dong so for more than a year, yet I'm sure Sol must have been taking the knee before our final few matches of last season when he was named as a sub because I'm sure it would have been pointed out in the media or on social media if he hadn't been doing so while the rest of his team mates were.
It seems to me that Sol is just abiding with a team vote on the subject and I can only imagine that anyone who chose to go against a team vote, be it for or against taking the knee, does so because they have very strong convictions on the matter.
Returning to DeKock, he's South Africa's best player in this format of the game in my view and this, along with the fact that we're talking South Africa with its I'll say chequered history on the subject, must have felt especially strongly on the subject to take a decision which might end up having enormous repercussions on his career.
There is an additional consideration in this case in that DeKock's decision might be founded on a resentment towards being told what to do by the South Arican cricket Board, but he has refused to take the knee before - when asked about this during a tour of the West Indies, he replied “My reason? I’ll keep it to myself. It’s my own, personal opinion. It’s everyone’s decision; no one’s forced to do anything, not in life. That’s the way I see things.”.
I don't think people should rush to conclusions about DeKock yet, but I'd said it's reasonable to ask, and possibly beneficial to the player, that he expands on that rather mealy mouthed justification of his actions.