For a few years,that thought rattled around Khawaja’s mind repeatedly,and he felt isolated in the absence of anyone around him to help him overturn it. Whether that was his coaches,selectors or the Australian public,it was a lonely place to be.
Usman Khawaja.Getty
on five tours of south Asia between 2011 and 2017,Khawaja was given plenty of reasons to doubt himself.
It is one of the great stories of Australian sport that,driven by the same stubbornness that got him into the national side despite a cultural background that had dissuaded many others from persisting,Khawaja did come back:not once,but twice.
His pair of pristine innings in the UAE in 2018 showed the world that Khawaja could in fact play spin;his returns in Pakistan,Sri Lanka and now India over the past 12 months have been part of a joyous late career run-spree that coincides with his emergence as one of the most-loved cricketers in the game.
Little wonder,then,that Khawaja was truly emotional after storming Narendra Modi Stadium with a century that formed the bulwark of a strong first day’s work for Australia in pursuit of a 2-2 drawn series with India.
“I don’t think I’ve ever smiled so much on getting a century,there was emotion in it,I’ve done two tours of India before,carried the drinks for eight Test matches before I got a chance here,” he said after play.
“Throughout the middle of my career,I got told I couldn’t play spin and that’s why I never got an opportunity to play in India. I got an opportunity to play in a white ball series a few years ago and was man of the series,got an opportunity here again with the red ball.
“It’s just nice to go out there and tick off a hundred in India,which was something if you asked me five years ago,if you told me that,I’d think you were crazy. There was a lot of emotion. I just never expected this to happen.”
With every run Khawaja carves out in these climes,those who were around him in the Australian side from 2011 to 2017 will be given pause. Similarly,those who felt he was surplus to requirements from 2019 to 2022 can also ponder.
“Anytime I got out to spin people were like ‘you can’t play spin’. I probably started believing it myself,” Khawaja said.
“I didn’t really get the support from the people around me at the time.
“Didn’t feel like the team really supported me,didn’t feel like the coaching staff and selectors really supported me through that journey. It just made it so hard. Whether I was or wasn’t,yes I’m a better player of spin now,no doubt about that,I have more shots,better defence.
“But I didn’t really get the opportunity to learn at that early stage. Fortunately enough I’m quite stubborn,so went out of my own way to learn,then we had a couple of A-tours here in India,which helped a lot. Had to go back and figure it out all by myself.”
The past year has seen Khawaja peel off hundreds in the land of his birth,reckon with a dastardly pitch in Galle,and then handle the contrasting challenges of three devious turners in Nagpur,Delhi and Indore followed by a much more agreeable Ahmedabad.
Usman Khawaja salutes his first Test century against India.AP
“I didn’t really get a lot of chances in the subcontinent,but in the last year and a half,I’ve played a lot in the subcontinent,” he said.
“A lot of people talked about how flat the wickets were in Pakistan,and obviously I scored a lot of runs there. I was the only person to score a hundred there.
“Went to Galle in the first game on an absolute bunsen[turner] and felt like I batted well there. I felt like I’ve been contributing the whole time and that’s been the most rewarding thing because I’ve been contributing to some wins. If you get runs in a losing team no one remembers it and it just doesn’t feel the same.
“Getting a hundred now on top of some of the runs I’ve scored in the subcontinent,been told my whole life I couldn’t play in the subcontinent. I do feel like that monkey went off my back when I scored that hundred in Dubai,that was Dubai,but I wanted to do it in the subcontinent,so[it’s] very special.”
As for the weirdness of being pushed to the nets for warmups while Modi and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese took a chariot ride around the stadium,Khawaja joked that it actually suited his aversion to such drills.
“Greatest warm-up of all time,” he laughed. “I did a few run-throughs,did a stretch,talked to Virat and then went out and padded up. I don’t think you can get much better than that. For me,I was happy,I think some of the other guys are a bit more structured.
“I think Alex Carey likes to take catches in the middle and a few of the other guys like to do stuff on the field,so that might have thrown them off a little bit. But fortunately Smithy won the toss and batted,so the batsmen were fine with it.”
Usman Khawaja,then,can play spin after all.
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