Khawaja\u2019s failure to open, and the initial uncertainty as to why, sparked a wave of criticism from former greats, with Tom Moody telling broadcaster ABC he was \u201cstunned\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely poor management,\u201d Moody said. \u201cAt the end of the day, to gamble on the fact that he could come back on the field when England is eight down [is a big risk].<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is beyond a joke. He is our most experienced top-order player. We needed Khawaja at the front to lead the batting unit into this series.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Australia coach Darren Lehmann said it was \u201cdisappointing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed him out there facing the first ball,\u201d Lehmann added.<\/p>\n
It later emerged that Khawaja skipped optional training on Thursday to play golf, but Cricket Australia chief Todd Greenberg said the back stiffness was a pre-existing issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s held him in good stead over the last couple of years,\u201d Greenberg told SEN radio of playing golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not uncommon for a lot of them to play golf the day prior.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people talk about cricket being played between the ears, and so getting some time away from being in your hotel or training I think is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed to Mitchell Starc being on the golf course with Khawaja, then taking 7-58 in England\u2019s first innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI noticed Mitch Starc played golf with him, so it certainly didn\u2019t impact his performance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid that correlate to any of the issues? I personally don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think 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
\u2013 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Khawaja\u2019s failure to open, and the initial uncertainty as to why, sparked a wave of criticism from former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,5272,85,1863,44485,9218,4282,16558,99524,3039,12513,1888,18126,99521,99526,99523,111,139,69,5493,31959,72,5415,18833,213,61500,765,22505,99525,99522,540,102],"class_list":["post-148862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-ashes","tag-australia","tag-back","tag-batter","tag-before","tag-boss","tag-cricket","tag-defended","tag-defends","tag-failed","tag-first","tag-golf","tag-greenberg","tag-innings","tag-khawaja","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-open","tag-outing","tag-perth","tag-playing","tag-round","tag-sports","tag-stiffness","tag-test","tag-todd","tag-underfire","tag-usman","tag-where","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}