{"id":301102,"date":"2025-11-22T08:47:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T08:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301102\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T08:47:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T08:47:12","slug":"cricket-australias-todd-greenberg-rejects-golf-link-to-usman-khawaja-back-spasms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/301102\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket Australia\u2019s Todd Greenberg rejects golf link to Usman Khawaja back spasms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s held him in good stead over the last couple of years,\u201d Greenberg said on SEN radio on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not uncommon for a lot of them to play golf the day prior. A lot of them will talk about cricket being played between the ears, and so getting some time away from your hotel or training is really important.<\/p>\n

\u201cI noticed Mitchell Starc played golf with him, so it certainly didn\u2019t affect his performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid that correlate to any of the issues? I personally don\u2019t think so. I know Usman\u2019s a very seasoned campaigner, he knows his body well, and he knows how to get himself prepared for cricket, and he\u2019s done it over a long period of time. So I think that\u2019s drawing a long bow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenberg added, however, that Khawaja and other players would have to be accountable for their performances during the series, having been given room to prepare as they think best.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s exactly how Andrew McDonald and the team have functioned over a long period of time, and they\u2019ve been very successful on that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe individual performance inside a team environment, and then ultimately you\u2019re held accountable for your performance. That\u2019s mature and that\u2019s the current approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 19-wicket day got the Ashes off to a rapid start, with fears the Perth Test might not get far into the third day. Greenberg acknowledged the decision to move the opening Test of the summer from Brisbane to Perth<\/a> for three years had not been well-liked by the players, as Starc had said.<\/p>\n

\"Usman<\/p>\n

Usman Khawaja.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Mitch was talking about the Gabba, I\u2019m not sure if he\u2019ll want to take that back after his seven-for yesterday,\u201d Greenberg quipped. \u201cBut does the Gabba genuinely give us an advantage? I\u2019m not sure. Particularly with the pace attacks of these teams, I\u2019m not sure it is an advantage.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand why the team would want certain things, and the team would understand why I would need certain things. Ultimately, it\u2019s my job then to thread the needle and make a decision that I think is best for Australian cricket, which is what we\u2019ve done here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was in the job to make friends, this is not the job. You need to make what you think is the best decision for cricket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenberg admitted, however, that the rush of early wickets ran the risk of affecting CA\u2019s bottom line, in a season when the game\u2019s governors are trying to end a six-year run of balance sheet deficits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m actually worried about getting to day three before we get to day four \u2013 I don\u2019t want to get too far ahead of myself. I\u2019m expecting today the pitch will flatten out a little bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cCricket has made deficits over the last few years out of COVID, and it\u2019s absolutely critical this year that we cash in and make as much as we can to put back into the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s held him in good stead over the last couple of years,\u201d Greenberg said on SEN radio on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-301102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}