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Khawaja’s form is good, but it is hardly earth-shattering. I’ll just let digest, and watch the comments explode David Lord style.
Before I get into why I believe this, or why the hyperbole around him is ridiculous, I’ll preface this with a few comments. Khawaja is a good player now, with very few obvious weaknesses in his game. I’ve been a huge fan of Khawaja for quite a while and really disagree with his earlier treatment as an Australian Test player.
The in one Test, out the next was ridiculous. But let’s get onto the actual article.
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The bloke has gone 174, 9*, 121, 144, 56 in Tests, scored 70 in the final of the BBL, and 104*, 62, 109* to boot. Listening to the Channel Ten commentators, he is Don Bradman reincarnate.
And I’ll agree, the figures are impressive, very impressive. However, I wouldn’t even put Khawaja in the top three Australian batsmen just yet – let alone worldwide.
And here is the simple reason. The pitches he has batted on might as well have been the M7 in Sydney, and the bowling attacks could be described average at best. New Zealand has two world class bowlers in Tim Southee and Trent Boult. However, it was clear at the Gabba that Boult was clearly underdone, and Southee was injured before the end of the Test.
The Gabba was as flat as I have ever seen it. Which brings us onto… the WACA. A total of 1200 runs combined in the first innings should say everything. It was the flattest deck I have seen outside of the SSC.
Then there was the West Indies Tests. I swear one of the ‘Milo Into Cricket’ teams I saw on day two in the SCG lunch break was scarier than the WI bowling ‘attack’.
But what about the BBL? Outside of Adil Rashid, there really isn’t a clear international quality bowler in the BBL. Rashid has a Test record of three matches, eight wickets @70, 20 ODIs, 22 wickets @ 44, 10 T20s, seven wickets @33. I would not call him a top quality international bowler.
I’m not saying Khawaja’s form isn’t great. I’m not saying that his earlier treatment was good. And I agree you can only play what’s in front of you. But I am saying it might be time to cool on the Khawaja hype.
Let him perform in NZ. Let him perform in the T20 World Cup in India and then I might just agree he can walk on water.
And as a final word, here are a couple of stats. 42.02 is Khawaja’s average in first class cricket and 27 is Khawaja’s Test average before this year.
With those two figures, I think we can give the selectors a clap that they even picked him at the start of the year.
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