{"id":345810,"date":"2025-12-13T17:46:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T17:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345810\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T17:46:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T17:46:18","slug":"the-ashes-2025-usman-khawaja-press-conference-retirement-admission-travis-head-opening-spot-back-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345810\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ashes 2025 | Usman Khawaja press conference, retirement admission; Travis Head opening spot; back injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

An open Usman Khawaja<\/a> has admitted he could’ve retired two years ago amid calls he could’ve played his last Test for Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Khawaja’s spot in the team has become a major talking point due to Travis Head’s success at the top of the order and the 38-year-old’s back injury.<\/p>\n

The opener is now ready to go for Adelaide and in contention, however whether he’s picked remains to be seen. <\/p>\n

READ MORE: Norris messed with, drops F-bomb in bizarre trophy moment<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: How ‘thin’ England will ponder what can be done to save Ashes<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Tough gig’: Grant defends Golden Boot voting<\/a><\/p>\n

Khawaja told media on Saturday that “I could’ve retired two years ago” and that he’s “not here to hang on” after responding to the speculation around his future.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Usman Khawaja speaks to media.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

“I’ve got to be totally honest, it doesn’t really faze me,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’m the guy that as much as people sometimes want to have a crack at me, I love playing for Australia, I’m still very committed, still every game I take the same way as I took 10 years ago: train hard, do everything right.<\/p>\n

“For me, it’s irrelevant, and more about being a professional. People can have opinions, absolutely no worries to me, but I can’t really sit down and worry what other people think, especially outside of the squad and the people I care about.”<\/p>\n

In the wash-up of Head’s hundred in Perth, the South Australian revealed he’d been lobbying for a shift up the order for two years since David Warner retired. <\/p>\n

However, Khawaja doesn’t think Head’s been pushing that case too strongly.<\/p>\n

“I think Travis said he’d been quietly lobbying. It was more a case of Heady always said, ‘If you need me to open, I’ll open’,” Khawaja said.<\/p>\n

“I had a joke with [Andrew McDonald about it]. I was like, ‘Quietly lobbying \u2013 that’s one of the quietest lobbyings I’ve heard’, and he had a giggle too and was like, ‘Yeah’,” he added with a smile.<\/p>\n

\"Australia's<\/p>\n

Australia’s Usman Khawaja (right) speaks with Australia head coach Andrew McDonald (left) during a nets session in Brisbane.\u00a0PA Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“Heady’s a team player … but it’s not like he was at the back knocking on doors saying, ‘I want to open’. If you’re batting five you’re quite content, so I think that was taken out of context a bit.”<\/p>\n

Khawaja’s predicament has been compared to Warner’s retirement after it was described as a farewell tour. <\/p>\n

“I think David declared his six months out, didn’t he? So how am I being put in the same boat?” he smiled.<\/p>\n

“I’m just trying to play cricket for Australia, talk around farewell Tests is irrelevant to me.”<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David Warner and Usman Khawaja in 2024.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

As for the back injury, Khawaja first copped a blow when Australia was fielding at Perth and was constantly going off the field in England’s first innings.<\/p>\n

His absence led to him not being able to open, with Marnus Labuschagne shifting up the order.<\/p>\n

The injury happened again when he attempted a catch in the second innings which led to Head’s promotion.<\/p>\n

Khawaja put the injury down to flying. <\/p>\n

“I’ve never enjoyed doing stuff on the day of flights anyway,” Khawaja said.<\/p>\n

“I’ll probably be a bit more cautionary about that now because I think that was half the reason why what happened, happened in Perth \u2013 a long flight. We had a six-hour flight and there was a bit of a delay that didn’t help. I did feel sore after it, so I’ll always be mindful of flights.<\/p>\n

“I smacked them in the nets [in Brisbane], I was crunching them, even Beau [Webster] next to me was [saying], ‘Geez, you’re hitting them good’, and I was like, ‘Yeah, but my back was sore’. It was still two days out and my back was still very stiff, and it was just too hard \u2013 I didn’t want to start a game, the risk was too high. With the selectors, we sat down and had a chat afterwards, and it was still hurting.”<\/p>\n

Khawaja also caused a stir when it was revealed he played golf three times<\/a> in the lead-up to the first Test.<\/p>\n

Many made the connection between his back spasms and that preparation.<\/p>\n

“The golf one, [it’s] not really important to me what other people say. I’ve always been a professional,” he said.<\/p>\n

In a busy few weeks, Khawaja also called the Perth pitch a “piece of shit”<\/a> at his foundation’s function, with Cricket Australia Todd Greenberg holding a meeting with him over those comments. <\/p>\n

“The wicket one was not really a big issue for me. I talked to Todd about it, like adults, and it was all sorted. I think it was more of an issue for the media and everyone else, if I’m being truly honest, but it’s all resolved, no issues,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An open Usman Khawaja has admitted he could’ve retired two years ago amid calls he could’ve played his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-345810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345810","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=345810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}