In 2011, when I was in the last few years of my school. Khawaja made his Test debut against England after a better first-string cricket career. To remind everyone, David Warner got a chance to play in Australia's high quality cricket without any experience. The end of Australia's golden era after Hayden, Langer and Ponting retired from cricket. The question was who would be part of Australia's line sub in the coming decade.
Many names came in front of which Usman Khawaja was also one. But from 2011 to 2022, he could play only 48 Tests, scoring 3443 runs at an average of 45. It certainly surprises everyone that the career of a batsman remains short like this. Khawaja still holds the record of only batsman to scored century in Test match of day and night. And after a long gap of 2 years, Khawaja had scored 4 centuries in 6 Tests, including an innings of 174 runs.
Also Read | The Ashes: Reliving the furious Mitchell Johnson
Khawaja played the first test against his native country Pakistan in 2016 and described it like this in his own funny way,
"Funnily enough I was waiting downstairs and I needed the change room locker to be opened for us and I was just waiting and the Queensland Cricket lady came down. She was like 'Oh, you need the locker rooms open?' I went 'yes please' and she started walking to the Pakistani change room. I was like, 'No, I'm that way, thank you'.
From 2015 to 2020, Usman Khawaja did not get much opportunities to show his skills. Where Warner has more than 90 Test experience, Khawaja has only 48 Test experience at the age of 35. Clear deception with an artist. After the fourth Ashes Test match of 2019, Khawaja returned in 2022 once again in the fourth Test match against England. But this time Khawaja scored two consecutive centuries in the same test match and made his comeback vigorously.
And in the ongoing series, Usman Khawaja has scored 392 runs in 3 Test matches, including an innings of 160 runs. In the third test match, where Australia won the toss and decided to bat, Shaheen took 2 wickets and put Australia on the back foot. Its pair of Smith and Khawaja took the lead and the team emerged from the crisis, in which once again Usman Khawaja missed a century, which was caught by Babar Azam as a catch.
