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Australian batsman Usman Khawaja prepares to ground his bat to complete his first run in international cricket during play on Day 1 in the Fifth Ashes Test between Australia and England at the Sydney Cricket Ground in Sydney on Monday, Jan. 3, 2011. (AAP Image/Paul Miller)
Usman Khawaja clipped his first ball in Test cricket off his legs for a couple of runs. Then he pulled the next ball for four. The shots were neat and elegant. My mind went back several decades to another neat and elegant left-hander, David Gower, who famously pulled his first delivery in Test cricket for a four.
Khawaja is not as tall as Gower. He is not quite as elegant a left-handed batsman, either. But like Gower he gets on with the game. Any time the England bowlers dropped the ball short or a bit wide, Khawaja pounced with swivelling hook shots and slashing drive/cuts.
It was this determination to get on with the game that led to his downfall. Graeme Swann was bowling a tight line to him, with a field that surrounded the bat. Khawaja tried to come down the pitch to Swann but was forced back with excellent length bowling. Then the youngster tried to sweep a top spinner and was caught at square leg.
And down came the rain. One more ball … and who knows how many runs he might have scored today in better batting conditions on the second day?
There is a new theory on understanding that generally first impressions, the first click, are the most sensible. The first impression of Khawaja in a Test is that he is destined to have a fine and long career wearing the baggy green cap.
His temperament seems to be nicely balanced between having the energy to have a crack at loose balls to being calm under pressure. There is none of the nervous fiddling with his gloves, for instance, that Michael Clarke indulges himself with between balls while batting.
Along with a sound temperament, there is a sound technique. He doesn’t jump around like Phillip Hughes. He doesn’t go too hard at the ball like Ricky Ponting. On defence, for instance, he plays with his bat and pads together. He lets the ball come to him, which is the mark of a good batsman.
Richie Benaud, who has seen and played against many of the greats since the late 1940s, was clearly taken with the debut. In the under-stated Benaud manner he told viewers that he and Neil Harvey would assess new players when he was captain of Australia. If there was promise of great potential they would agree that there was ‘a bit about him.’
After watching Khawaja calmly go about the business of putting Australia on the front foot with some resolute and occasionally brilliant batting, Benaud was prepared to make a call. There is ‘a bit about Khawaja,’ he told viewers.
Phillip Hughes went some way, I thought, to establishing his credentials as a long-term opener for Australia. He is slowly getting some of the foot work eccentricities out of his game. He remains a wonderful striker of the ball, a fact illustrated by several cracking fours he belted off the back foot.
You have the feeling (or I do, at least) that the dazzling youngster of two seasons ago who scored centuries in each inning of a Test against South Africa, with Dale Steyn bowling his thunderbolts, is slowly re-emerging. To push all this along, the selectors should play Hughes in the ODI to give him as much exposure to top-class bowling at the start of an innings as possible.
I can’t agree, though, with Peter Roebuck and Michael Slater about Shane Watson’s performance as opener. They were full of praise about the way he toughed out his innings by leaving a majority of balls alone.
However, Ian Healey, was most critical of the extremely slow rate of scoring by Watson. And he was correct. Around the time that Hughes was dismissed, Watson had played out 38 balls for 4 runs. Australia did not lose a wicket, until the last ball of play, before lunch but scored only 55 runs. Even without Hughes’ wicket, this made it England’s session, in my view.
If you are not scoring runs, you are not damaging the opposition. So Watson’s inability or Boycott-like refusal to play positively helped him survive, presumably, but did not help Australia’s cause very much.
There is a selfishness (in my opinion) about Watson’s play, which comes out in his run-calling from time to time, that I don’t like much.
Clarke failed again and his position in the batting line-up, when Ponting comes back into the side (but not as captain, hopefully) remains in question. As I see it, Michael Hussey and Clark are the contenders for number five, with Khawaja and Ponting batting at three and four.
But this is for next August when Australia plays its next Test.
If Australia can get to around 250 there is enough in the pitch (and with a slow out-field) for this to be a reasonable total to bowl against. But this presumes that Ben Hilhenhaus can start taking some wickets and that Michael Beer is the sort of inspired choice that Peter Taylor was for a Sydney Test all those years ago …