The Australian opener once averages 14.62 in Asia but his first Test in India confirms his status as the team’s most important sub-continent batsman
When Usman Khawaja made a century in Indiaon Thursday, it didn’t come as a surprise. Just over a year ago the same idea would have been astonishing. At least, it would have been for the outside observer, who would have known that Khawaja had a record of problems batting against spin. The player himself may have had more belief.
Khawaja can be a punchy customer. His dealings with the media have a bit of prickle, taking issue with lines of questioning that he doesn’t agree with. Fair enough, it counters laziness from the other side of the exchange. In a more collaborative interview with Cricbuzz recently, Khawaja explained his relationship with spin to writer Bharat Sundaresan. Perhaps that helped get his thoughts in order, because he voiced things similarly when he spoke to a press conference in Ahmedabad.
The paraphrased version was that even within the team, his dismissals to spin reinforced a narrative that he couldn’t play it until the prophecy became self-fulfilling. “You probably want to keep that stuff in-house and figure out a way to get the best out of your player. But I think at that time, there wasn’t as much support from the support staff… I was like, I can’t trust anyone else to give me the right information. I’m the one out there. It’s my career. So I just need to figure out a way.
His average in Asia was 14.62, his tally of five Tests too small a sample size to be decisive. But it was more about feel. In Galle he had the rare distinction of being dismissed twice in the same day, by the same bowler, in the same mode. He lasted six balls on the second morning. Australia got rolled, Sri Lanka batted and declared, Khawaja tried a nightwatchman, that didn’t work, so he went to the middle to be out first ball.
Again the key was that he looked frazzled, whether by the spin, the noise, the chaos. Place that in a broader picture where his first 15 Tests away from home returned an average of 25 and one century in New Zealand, and it made sense to question whether he was good enough to change things.
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