JOIN USHow 'stubborn' Khawaja dispelled perception
In the two previous tours of India -- 2013 and 2017 -- with the Australian senior side, Usman Khawaja couldn’t play a single Test out of eight.
On his first visit, he was suspended, along with three of his team-mates, in what came to be known as the Homework-gate, orchestrated by then coach and captain combo of Mickey Arthur and Michael Clarke. Khawaja was on the cusp of playing the third Test of the series in Mohali then.
The second time, he wasn’t required for anything other than carrying drinks as he was branded a weak player of spin.
On Thursday, the Australian opener of Pakistani origin sang a redemption song with a century that was old-fashioned - a combination of patience and persistence, skill and style. The joy on Khawaja’s face was unmissable upon reaching the century. It was his 14th century and the first one against India in India. He jumped in joy as if it was his maiden century. He had ticked the box he was most desperate to and there was a sense of both disbelief and delight.
To put it in more perspective, this is only the second century of the series which is into its final Test and the first from an Australian batsman.
“I don’t think I’ve ever smiled so much on getting a century, there was emotion in it,” said Khawaja. “I’ve done two tours of India before, carried the drinks for eight Test matches before I got a chance here. Throughout the middle of my career I got told I couldn’t play spin and that’s why I never got an opportunity to play in India (before this tour). “I got an opportunity to play in a white ball series a few years ago (2019) and was man of the series, got an opportunity here again with the red ball.”
Khawaja was just 26 when he first visited India in 2013. He is 36 now and he had little hope of getting a hundred in India.
“It’s just nice to go out there and tick off a hundred in India which was something if you asked me five years ago, if you told me that I’d think you were crazy. There was a lot of emotion, I just never expected this to happen.”
That said did he believe he can’t play spin?
“Maybe to some extent,” admitted Khawaja, who was perhaps forced believe that he probably can’t play spin and there was little help from people around him to dispel that perception.
“... But think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy in its own way,” he offered. “People start saying that then perception is reality. Anytime I got to spin people were like ‘you can’t play spin’. I probably started believing it myself. I didn’t really get the support from the people around me at the time. Didn’t feel like the team really supported me, didn’t feel like the coaching staff and selectors really supported me through that journey.
“It just made it so hard. Whether I was or wasn’t, yes I’m a better player of spin now, no doubt about that, I have more shots, better defence. But I didn’t really get the opportunity to learn at that early stage. Fortunately enough, I’m quite stubborn so went out of my own way to learn then we had a couple of A tours here in India which helped a lot. Had to go back and figure it out all by myself.”
Following his unbeaten 104 on Thursday, Khawaja became the highest run-getter in the series so far from either side with 237 runs. That's some way of quashing perceptions.
Agreed, this was easily the best pitch to bat on of all the four surfaces in the series but it needed a change in mindset and approach that he had to display in the previous three Tests which had turning tracks with so much happening.
"It was such a nice wicket. I just didn't want to give my wicket away," Khawaja noted. "Plenty of times I wanted to hit them over the top, which is what I normally do in the subcontinent, but I thought 'today you're going to have to get me out'. That was a mental battle more than anything else because you have to put your ego away. I wasn't striking very fast. It's just a battle all day just to continue the process... because I knew the longer I bat, the better it was for us."