Usman Khawaja’s classy ton yesterday in the second Test against Sri Lanka was a welcome return to form for a batsman who shapes as pivotal in the upcoming Ashes in England.
Khawaja (101 not out) and Travis Head (59 not out) gave Australia a lead of 515 before the Sri Lankan openers went to stumps at 0-16.
Australia will be keen for Khawaja to bat at first drop in England not just due to his significant experience – he owns eight Test tons – but because it will allow the returning Steve Smith to bat at four.
While Smith has a jaw-dropping Test record batting at three, with 1744 runs at 67, he will enter the Ashes not having played a Test match for 16 months. England’s quicks, particularly evergreen star James Anderson, would love to get early looks at Smith while he is trying to readjust to Test cricket.
Khawaja’s role in the Ashes would be to partner with Australia’s openers to shield Smith and the middle order from the new ball, with which England’s seamers can do so much damage so quickly.
Until yesterday it looked as if Khawaja’s Ashes spot was in serious doubt. He had laboured through the worst home summer of his career, with 209 runs at 23. The left-hander was troubled by India’s high-quality attack and then scored just 11 and 0 in his first two innings against Sri Lanka’s comparatively modest bowling unit.
Across this summer Khawaja was not struggling with one style of bowler or with one particular aspect of his technique. Against pace he was being troubled by quicks off both the front and back foot and was meanwhile unable to locate a consistent method of scoring from spin.
It was a similar story early in his innings yesterday as Khawaja made a scratchy start. Offie Dilruwan Perera has dismissed Khawaja four times in Tests and looked like adding to that total. Khawaja was getting stuck on the crease opposed to the tweaker and could not get off strike. He crept to 20 from 55 balls.
Then, just before tea, spin all-rounder Dhananjaya de Silva offered a half-tracker to Khawaja, who cracked it to the mid-wicket boundary.
Sometimes all it takes for an out-of-nick cricketer to turn the tide is one crisp shot, one rousing wicket, one brilliant catch or one sharp run out. Khawaja looked an entirely different batsman after the break.
Australia’s Usman Khawaja celebrates his century. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)
He was nimble and assured against spinners Perera and Dhananjaya and began to thrash the inexperienced Sri Lankan quicks.
In the final session Khawaja cracked 76 from 79 balls without ever engaging full white-ball mode. He did not start slogging or risking his wicket.
Khawaja just seized upon every skerrick of width on each over or under-pitched delivery. Granted, he was facing a weak and green Sri Lankan attack on a wonderful batting pitch. This one innings is by no means evidence that Khawaja is back to peak form.
What it did represent, though, was a significant stride in the right direction.
Khawaja would now be best served by being left out of the ODI tour of India later this month so he can try to build on this momentum and get four to five Sheffield Shield matches of invaluable practice against the swinging Dukes ball.
Australia are fortunate that their entire current Test top seven may have this opportunity to hone their skills against the Dukes in the second half of the Shield season given none of them bar Travis Head is likely to tour India.
The Dukes which has been used at the back end of the past few Shield seasons swings significantly more than the Kookaburra employed before Christmas.
Khawaja will likely be tested more by top Shield bowlers wielding the Dukes than he was yesterday. But runs are runs, and this century, however cheap it may have been, has released significant pressure on the 32-year-old.
Samlaurence26
Roar Rookie
England have 3 keepers who are supposedly legitimate top 6 batsmen, and it's getting them nowhere. Keeper at 7 always the best option
Munro Mike
Roar Rookie
#Matt H And certainly - you can only play the opposition you come up against. Therein lies the issue.
Samlaurence26
Roar Rookie
Starc hasn't been a reliable batter in a long time
Samlaurence26
Roar Rookie
He looked back on form
DaveJ
Roar Rookie
I hope you’re right Ronan, but I don’t think we can count on too many runs from Khawaja at 3 in the Ashes. His average of 25 outside Australia comes from poor scores against seam and swing in England and SA as well as against spin in Asia. One glimmer of hope- he has averaged 40 in 22 County Championship matches spread over a few seasons. So I would have him in the top 6 at the moment ahead of Harris. Just hope the selectors treat the assess the numbers from the second half of the Shield season wisely and look at long term trends. To me Patterson and Burns are solid bets and should be inked in. I don’t care too much what Harris, Labuschagne or Stoinis do unless it’s absolutely brilliant against the moving ball.
DP Schaefer
Roar Rookie
Which is a reasonable response in this case, though my suggestion is not out of order. What I am looking at is the general big picture where, ideally, a good balance is to have 5 people who can consistently contribute to the bowling (not a batter that rolls his arm over two overs every 3 tests) whilst still have 6 people contribute to the bulk of the runs. Thus I challenge the approach of needing specialist batsmen. Even when our batsmen are struggling, you think we'll be better off having another struggling batsmen in at 6 making 20 runs, than say bat Paine in #6 *(test ave 35) followed by Cummins and Starc (both can bat) then 3 more bowlers? We wouldn't lose much on the scoring side and be more of a chance of taking 20 wickets.
Ronan O'Connell
Expert
What a joy you are Ken, thank you for brightening this place up.
Matt H
Roar Guru
I disagree Waxhead. In the first innings especially, Burns and Head came together at 3 for not many. Burns survived the first 15 overs with the ball hooping around. And then they toughed it out and prospered. They also didn't lose concentration ala Harris. And they would have been under some serious personal pressure for their spots. This was definitely Burns' last roll of the dice and Head still needed to nail down his spot.
Matt H
Roar Guru
Given the 12 months we've had, I'll take the paper.
Matt H
Roar Guru
England just thought that about the West Indies series and look at how that turned out.
Matt H
Roar Guru
I’m sure you have evidence to back this up…As far as I can tell it’s been only 4 times in sixteen tests. Although even with his tonne it might soon be 5 from 17.
Matt H
Roar Guru
But it's our batting that has been weak in the past 18 months, so I don't think dropping a batsman to play an extra bowler is useful.
Matt H
Roar Guru
Well he ended up with 10 for and his 2nd innings wickets looked a lot less lucky, so the trend is good.
Tanami Mehmet
Guest
When did being called Marsh become worse than being called a cheat? And there'll be plenty of that from June to September.
The Bush
Roar Guru
Maybe, maybe not. He seems more comfortable at 4, so why move him? Khawaja also has a great record opening, which suggests that him going in early isn't that worst thing that could happen. However I'm not so sure you necessarily want Smith in second ball of an innings. If Smith batted at first drop, who bats at four? Based on the current talent available, it seems that Khawaja at 3 and Smith at 4 is our strongest batting line up. Thing with Smith though, at least before his ban, he was so good, he could have probably batted anywhere and been a success.
Nudge
Roar Rookie
And I think this past 2 weeks has shown that Pucovski is not ready for test cricket. If he is struggles from being away from his home base for 2 weeks, he’s a long way from touring overseas on a month long test tour.
Nudge
Roar Rookie
It will come down to the toss. One team is going to win 3 or more tosses. Whoever that is will be extremely hard to beat
Ben
Guest
In reality Steve Smith should be batting at 3, averages 67 with 8 hundreds from 29 innings. Imperious.
DeltaTango
Roar Rookie
Fair - it's still hard to have a lot of faith in the top 6 consistently posting huge totals- but hopefully we can make an English par of 300 most digs? England will be better than they currently showing at home but their team is the most bits and pieces team in world cricket! Has to be our best chance to win in the last 2 or 3 tours despite our own failings.
The Bush
Roar Guru
Chris, I dunno about "really well". It's tough to be too hard, as he's never been given the longest run in the side, but at no point has he ever seemed decent in ODI cricket (despite having a great List A record). His stints are like this: 1. 2013 - 3 games, didn't make double figures; 2. 2016 - 2 games against NZD, 1 fifty and 40 odd. Good return, but small sample size - no coincidence he's in the form of his life at this point, having had a great home summer (tests) and hit a good away century in NZD in the tests; 3. 2016 - plays the 7 games in the Caribbean in the middle of the year. Passes 50 twice, but still only averaged 36 for the tournament. At this point you'd say he's on his best run of form, but I still dunno if you'd call it "really well"... maybe; 4. 2016 - fails in two matches against Sri Lanka; 5. 2016 - One off decent score against Ireland (86 not out); 6. 2017 - January - doesn't get past 30 in 3 games against Pakistan (at home). 7. Last stint - didn't outright fail, but hardly set the world on fire.