Teammates and cricket experts are leaping to the defence of Usman Khawaja after the veteran Aussie copped some horrible treatment over the last week. Khawaja has been ruled out of the second Ashes Test due to the back issue that hampered him in Perth.
He wasn’t able to open in either innings in the first Test after suffering back spasms throughout the game. He’s now succumbed to the injury and won’t be able to play the day-night Test at the Gabba, starting on Thursday.
The 38-year-old has copped some pretty ordinary treatment from fans online, as well as from former players. Many have questioned why he played three-straight days of golf leading into the Perth Test, although Cricket Australia has insisted the back issue isn’t related to the golf.
Usman Khawaja (L) alongside Travis Head and Steve Smith before the first Ashes Test. (Photo by Paul Kane – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
Even if it is related, the pile-on directed at one of the best Aussie players of his generation has been out of line. Fans seem to have forgotten Khawaja’s incredible return to the Test team in 2021, and the mountain of runs he scored for the two years that followed.
He’s provided stability at the top of Australia’s order in the wake of David Warner’s retirement, meaning the Aussies haven’t had to find two brand-new openers. Regardless of whether he was wrong to play golf leading into the biggest Test series on the calendar, he hasn’t deserved the fallout he’s received from the cricket public.
Cricket experts leap to defence of Usman Khawaja
Speaking on SEN radio on Wednesday, leading commentator Adam White summed it up. “I feel there is a pile-on with Uzzie at the moment,” White said. “So many people that want him out the team, that want him to retire, saying he’s too old, but they’re forgetting very quickly what a great player he has been for Australia.
“85 Tests, 6000 runs, Test average of 43.56 with 16 Test centuries. First-class numbers – 15,000 runs and 43 first-class hundreds. When you compare his numbers to some of Australia’s great top order players, they stack up. Mark Taylor averaged 43, Justin Langer 45, Michael Slater 42 and David Boon 43.”
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White said Khawaja has done Australian cricket a massive favour by playing on so long. “For whatever reason, I believe he wouldn’t be playing any more if we had a realistic alternative,” he added. “But he has – not necessarily saved Australia – but he stayed there so long as an insurance policy because we have not had anyone better to knock him out of that spot.
“This time it feels like a celebration he has the injury. I think we have to remember what a great player he has been. He is a modern great. We should focus on the positives.”
Usman Khawaja won’t play the second Ashes Test, and his future in the baggy green is in doubt. (Photo by Robbie Stephenson/PA Images via Getty Images)
Bharat Sundaresan is another who believes the backlash has been unfair. “To question his dedication to cricket is unfair and out of line,” Sundaresan wrote for Cricbuzz. “As is challenging his priorities with regards to how he went about preparing for the first Test.
“Or for that matter linking the back spasms that largely impacted his performance and participation in Perth to the 18 holes of golf he played a day earlier. That would entail a level of scapegoating that crosses the line in this scenario.
“Whatever happens from here, it won’t be through a lack of trying from the veteran or any compromise in how he prepares for his next Test. Just like there wasn’t in Perth.”
Scott Boland and Aussie teammates feeling for Usman Khawaja
On Tuesday night, Scott Boland said the Aussie team are feeling for Khawaja and rallying around him. “It’s hard because (Khawaja) has obviously put in a lot of work since the last game to try and get his body right. He hasn’t come up (right) unfortunately,” Boland said.
Reporter Mark Gottlieb summed it up, writing on social media: “Khawaja’s form hasn’t warranted selection in ages – hardly a shock to not risk his back flaring up again with (Travis) Head there. If that’s the end of his Test career it’s a sad way to go out but I’ve got nothing but admiration for what he’s done in a baggy green.”