Usman Khawaja has been rested from Australia’s ODI series in New Zealand, starting next week, which means he badly needs a big score today or he could miss out on the upcoming Champions Trophy.
The current series against Pakistan has been a gilded opportunity for Khawaja to finally cement his place in the one-day side, after long being stuck behind David Warner and Aaron Finch.
The decision to dump veteran opener Finch for this series opened the door for Khawaja, who is a fixture of the Test team but has not managed to replicate that success in limited overs cricket, making just 56 runs at an average of 19 this series.
While he has had only three matches to prove himself, the competition for spots in Australia’s ODI line-up is ferocious. No other team in the format has Australia’s depth, which means fringe players – like Khawaja – must make the most of any appearances.
Even though Khawaja deserves a decent run in the side, the selectors quickly lose patience. And he’s especially vulnerable due to the fact that next week he will be part of an advance group of Test players heading to Dubai to prepare for next month’s tour of India.
As a result, he will miss the three-match Chappell-Hadlee series, which starts on Monday in Auckland. The absence of Khawaja and fellow opener Warner has seen Finch and Shaun Marsh recalled to the squad, both gunning to replace Khawaja as opener permanently.
Finch was Australia’s first-choice partner for Warner over the past four years, playing 77 ODIs in that time. Just over a year ago, he had an ODI batting average just shy of 40 and was one of the first players picked in the Australian XI.
Things fell apart for him in 2016, when he averaged just 28 with the bat from his 25 ODIs. As I detailed recently, Finch began relying too heavily on bludgeoning boundaries to keep the scoreboard moving.
Marsh has seemed to play ODIs only as a fill in for an awful long time now. Yet he’s always looked comfortable in limited overs internationals and has quietly compiled a fine ODI record.
As for Marsh, in his past 15 ODIs he has stacked up 584 runs at 45. Remarkably, those matches have been spread across almost four years, a product both of bad luck with injuries and the intense competition for spots.
Turning 34 years old in June, time is running out for the gifted West Australian, and with Australia searching for a long-term partner for Warner, the series in New Zealand could feasibly be the last chance Marsh will get to have a decent run in the team.
Khawaja, meanwhile, has been neither able to find the boundary regularly nor rotate the strike sufficiently. Too often this series he has allowed bowlers to pin him down, delivering a sequence of dot balls and keeping Warner at the non-striker’s end.
Today he has perhaps his last chance before the Champions Trophy to translate his sparkling Test form into ODI currency.
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