Boland\u2019s inclusion paid immediate dividends, with the Victorian veteran claiming his third five-wicket haul at Test level before making a valuable contribution with the bat as nightwatchman in the second innings. However, the bold selection call also left Australia without a frontline spinner \u2014 a decision that wasn\u2019t without its drawbacks.<\/p>\n
As another selection headache looming ahead of the series finale in Cape Town, Khawaja believes a third option has been largely overlooked in the debate surrounding Australia\u2019s bowling attack.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not Lyon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about Boland and Lyon (in the second Test), and not once have people really mentioned Kuhnemann,\u201d Khawaja told foxsports.com.au.<\/p>\n
\u201cKuhnemann is a terrific bowler, a Test bowler. He has a Test five-fa, and done really well for Australia when he\u2019s played. He\u2019s been a terrific bowler for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the South Africans having the majority of their players as right-handers, I\u2019m not really sure why people aren\u2019t bringing him into contention.\u201d<\/p>\n
After bursting onto the Test scene in 2023 with figures of 5\/16 in just his second match, Kuhnemann has proven himself a reliable left-arm orthodox option across his five red-ball matches for Australia.<\/p>\n
His last appearance in the Test side was against Sri Lanka back in February 2025, where he took 16 wickets across the two-match series in Galle.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a terrific bowler to keep things tight, much like what (Simon) Harmer did with our batsmen last game. I think the reason they picked Harmer last game was because we have so many left-handed batsmen. When the ball\u2019s spinning away, it\u2019s always slightly harder to score,\u201d Khawaja continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Kuhnemann presents the same option, and when it\u2019s spinning too, he is a very, very good bowler.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Nathan Lyon\u2019s the \u2018GOAT\u2019, and there\u2019s nothing against the GOAT! This is purely based on the fact the South Africans have so many right-handers in their team. I think Kuhnemann deserves to be talked about.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Kuhnemann](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/c473ab7fa9c91b1a0c3241f74652d524.jpeg\")
Kuhnemann looks on during an Australian training session at Kingsmead Stadium on October 7, 2026.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
It remains extremely unlikely that both Lyon and Kuhnemann would take to the field together in the series finale, however the Proteas did pair both Harmer and veteran left-armer Keshav Maharaj in Durban for the first Test.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, how Australia best deploys its bowling attack in Cape Town remains to be seen, as selectors juggle a number of other questions around opener Nic Maddinson, first drop bat Marnus Labuschagne and the make-up of their middle order with Cam Green expected to return from injury.<\/p>\n
The former looks the likeliest to be omitted from Australia\u2019s XI on Tuesday, with Khawaja believing he was better-placed to return in the middle order instead of opening.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo discredit to Nic Maddinson. I think Maddinson is terrific. I actually would have put him in the middle order at the start of the series, purely based on the fact the opening is so hard of a gap to fill,\u201d Khawaja said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNic got thrown up there and he didn\u2019t even get to face a spinner. He smacks spin too. He actually clobbers them for six, so kind of disappointed I didn\u2019t see that the first two games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian great Usman Khawaja has thrown a fresh curveball at selectors ahead of Tuesday\u2019s third and final Test…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-940039","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\/940039","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=940039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}