Usman Khawaja has given an exceptional performance in the fourth Ashes Test. He has scored 100 plus runs in both the innings after he substituted Travis Head in the team. Travis head got caught with Covid and Khawaja took full advantage of the situation. He is expecting to be dropped from the fifth and final test as Travis Head returns. He accepted this hard reality of the cricket industry.
Usman Khawaja believes that he won’t be having a place in Test cricket even after scoring two centuries back to back.
Usman Khawaja is expecting to be axed despite his astonishing return to Test cricket this week. ‘At the moment I’m probably quite resigned to the fact I will miss out,’ Khawaja said.
He added ‘From talking to George Bailey and the selectors about continuity, making sure we have a similar team and the team they picked for the first Test match is important and I’m not totally against that process. Throughout my career, a lot of changes were made and I was on the wrong side of them from my point of view a few times.
Khawaja had a spectacular performance of two hundred in two innings but still, he isn’t the top choice of the selectors.
Earlier, Scott Boland who had taken six wickets for seven runs on his debut would have been dropped too if Josh Hazelwood had returned in the game.
‘It’s just the reality. It sucks, but that’s just cricket,’ Khawaja reflected.
The left-handed batters haven’t been part of the Test squad since the 2019 Ashes when Marnus Labuschagne had an eye-catching entrance to Test as a replacement. Steve Smith returned to fitness in Manchester.
There’s still a possibility of Khawaja being retained in place of Marcus Harris but the entire thing depends on Bailey and his fellow selectors.
He has requested the managing director Ashley Giles to keep him in the white-ball squad when he was a standby player for Hobart.
