{"id":293238,"date":"2025-12-01T15:38:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T15:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/293238\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T15:38:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T15:38:04","slug":"ashes-2025-26-australias-khawaja-returns-to-nets-amid-back-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/293238\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashes 2025-26: Australia&#8217;s Khawaja returns to nets amid back issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Batter Usman Khawaja batted for the first time since the first Ashes Test against England during Australia&#8217;s training session on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Khawaja, 38, struggled with back spasms in Perth and was unable to fulfill his role as opener in either innings. He batted at number four in the first innings and was dismissed for two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Having done some light fielding on Sunday, Khawaja did some more running at the Gabba, his home ground, on Monday and faced throw downs for 30 minutes in the nets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Australia train again on Tuesday under the lights in Brisbane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Travis Head opened the batting in Khawaja&#8217;s place in Australia&#8217;s second innings of the first Test and his sensational 128 sent the hosts on their way to a two-day victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Head could continue in the role if Khawaja is not fit. Another option is batter Josh Inglis, who scored a century against England Lions last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Khawaja has also struggled for form in recent years. He averages 31.84 since the last Ashes series in 2023 and has not scored a fifty in any of his past 11 innings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Khawaja said last week he &#8220;should be right&#8221; for the second Test, which begins on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Batter Usman Khawaja batted for the first time since the first Ashes Test against England during Australia&#8217;s training&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-293238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}