{"id":835327,"date":"2026-11-15T11:36:30","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T11:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/835327\/"},"modified":"2026-11-15T11:36:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T11:36:30","slug":"cricket-news-2026-jason-gillespie-hits-back-at-usman-khawaja-over-criticism-in-book-sabr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/835327\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket news 2026: Jason Gillespie hits back at Usman Khawaja over criticism in book Sabr"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Gillespie<\/a> has described as \u201cridiculous\u201d a passage in Usman Khawaja<\/a>\u2019s book in which he criticises the former Australian<\/a> Test quick about comments he made after his retirement press conference in January.<\/p>\n

Gillespie, the pace-bowling great who took 259 Test wickets across the 1990s and 2000s, also accused Khawaja of being a \u201chypocrite\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Usman Khawaja.\u00a0Darrian Traynor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

When Khawaja faced the press ahead of this year\u2019s SCG Test to announce his retirement and discuss his career and life, he took aim at the media and former players over some of the reaction to the back injury that affected him in the 2025 Perth Test<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Khawaja, who was born in Pakistan and moved to Australia as a young boy, said some of the reaction, which centred on his decision to play three rounds of golf in three days in the lead-up to the Perth Test, carried racial undertones.<\/p>\n

Gillespie hit out.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing questioned over that and being held to account over your choices, that\u2019s not bullying, it\u2019s not abuse \u2013 that\u2019s all part and parcel of being a professional,\u201d Gillespie said on ABC radio at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t really throw a temper tantrum when asked to take accountability for the job you\u2019re actually paid to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the media in this space have been very consistent throughout this Ashes series. They\u2019ve consistently questioned the preparation of the England side. I don\u2019t see how that\u2019s been any different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gillespie also said he didn\u2019t question that Khawaja had experienced racism throughout his life and stated he had always \u201cadmired\u201d him for speaking out against it.<\/p>\n

Khawaja fired up at Gillespie in his book Sabr, which was released to the public on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunnily, the next day (after his retirement press conference), from what I saw, only one person really had an issue with what I said. It was retired legend Jason Gillespie, who came out and said that I was having a \u2018temper tantrum\u2019,\u201d Khawaja wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe irony is that Jason is of Aboriginal descent, and I couldn\u2019t believe that someone who supports First Nations people like he does, who goes out to communities, and has done all the great work that he has done, could be so tone deaf on the topic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Australian pace-bowling great Jason Gillespie during his coaching tenure with Pakistan.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as you talk about these issues, some people just say, \u2018Oh, there he goes, playing the race card again,\u2019 as if the problem doesn\u2019t exist. I knew this would happen \u2013 just not from someone like Jason.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gillespie was asked about Khawaja\u2019s criticism on ABC radio on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think I said anything that was controversial,\u201d Gillespie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe called me \u2018tone deaf\u2019 I think as well, and he was referencing my Indigenous heritage. I\u2019m not sure why he needed to bring that up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found that quite ridiculous, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gillespie said he didn\u2019t want to give Khawaja\u2019s broadside much more \u201cair time\u201d, adding: \u201cI\u2019m not sure it deserves it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he proceeded to clip the former Test batter again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s actually a little bit hypocritical of Usman to misrepresent my words when he\u2019s complaining about being misrepresented himself,\u201d Gillespie said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Gillespie has described as \u201cridiculous\u201d a passage in Usman Khawaja\u2019s book in which he criticises the former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-835327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835327","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=835327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}