Khawaja opens up on selection snub

One of the secrets of Usman Khawaja's remarkable run of success throughout the current summer has been that nothing has shaken his focus from his primary objective of scoring runs.

Not suffering a hamstring tear that cost him two Test matches while at the peak of his powers.

Not shuttling between red-ball and white-formats as he dominated every bowling attack he encountered, from Test arena to the Sydney Thunder's historic triumph in the KFC Big Bash League.

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And certainly not the time it took for his formidable form to be recognised with a call-up to Australia's ODI team, which will happen at Wellington tomorrow where the reigning world champions must win to retain any hope of reclaiming the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy.

After being told of his inclusion in the starting XI at Australia's training session in the New Zealand capital today, Khawaja admitted that his inability to win a place in the line-up despite his peerless performances of the past three months might have left him feeling aggrieved a few years ago.

But the 29-year-old is a less anxious, more fatalistic fellow these days and that implacability is reflected in the almost nonchalant mastery he's shown with the bat in international, domestic and franchise tournament company during this golden summer.

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"I probably would have been a bit more frustrated not getting in," he conceded today when asked if he would have taken his ongoing exclusion from the ODI team quite so magnanimously in his younger days.

"But all the guys here (who have been in the XI this summer) deserve to be here.

"I'm coming in for 'SOS' (Shaun Marsh) tomorrow but he's got an outstanding one-day record so it's a tough act to choose between, either or.

"You never know, I play tomorrow and then the third game he might come back in.

"I'm not really sure what selectors are thinking so at the moment, I'm just enjoying my cricket.

"I just like scoring runs; it doesn't matter if I'm playing grade cricket or not.

"At the start of the (season) I scored 200 not out for my grade club back home (in Brisbane), Valleys, and I had as much fun scoring that 200 as I had while scoring a lot of other hundreds.

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"I just love being out there and playing cricket – I missed a lot of cricket last year (due to a serious knee injury) so I'm happy to be out in the middle.

"I'm fit and healthy. I'm playing cricket. I can't complain."

As it turned out, Khawaja had no need to complain because countless others had publicly taken up that cause on his behalf through social media channels, frothing about the rationale for not selecting a batsman who last played an ODI in 2013 and bemoaning his absence from a team that kept winning even without him.

But it was the severity and the manner of the loss to New Zealand at Auckland earlier this week – the first time Australia's batsmen had been bowled out inside 25 overs in an ODI – that saw the frustration become a groundswell.

And with the three-match Chappell-Hadlee Series weighted heavily in the host nation's favour after their 159-run win in the first of three matches, the national selectors have appeased the public by installing Khawaja along with uncapped leg-spinner Adam Zampa (in place of injured allrounder James Faulkner).

Not that Khawaja has been paying much heed to those who have been balefully pushing his case.

"I've stayed away from it," he said of the furore that has waged among the twittering classes.

"People find it hard to believe but I really don't read the papers much, I don't really go on social media a lot or look at a lot of stuff.

"If there is anything about me, I usually just breeze by it and don't even read it so I probably don't have the whole gist of what's been going on and what's said.

"Nothing changes for me.

"I'm hoping to be a part of Australian cricket in all three forms (Test, ODI and T20) in the future, but that again depends on what the team's make-up is and what's going on.

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"I was really happy being part of the one-day squad in Australia.

"When I looked at the team, even though the ODI squad hadn't been picked (for the current NZ tour until Aaron Finch withdrew through injury), I thought, 'it's going to be hard to find a spot for me there'.

"I wasn't too surprised when I didn't get picked.

"I knew I was close, I knew if I kept doing things right there's a T20 World Cup coming up which hopefully I'd be close to.

"And there was the Test series coming up too (in New Zealand), a lot of cricket coming, so I was fine."

He also has no issue with the selection panel for keeping him on the sidelines until today, citing the ODI team's recent run of success over the past year (which includes a World Cup win and series successes in the UK and against India in Australia) as the reason why changes have been few.

Even if he was not called in as a last-minute replacement when Finch tore his hamstring a week ago, Khawaja claimed he would have been perfectly happy to captain Queensland in their Sheffield Shield match against South Australia in Adelaide as part of his preparation for the upcoming Test series in NZ.

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"Yeah, we talked a little bit," Khawaja said when asked if he had remained in contact with selection chair Rod Marsh during the period that he remained on the periphery.

"I didn't really say much, I didn't say anything at all in the papers when I didn't get picked for the ODIs because there was nothing to be said and I was expecting Rod to do the same.

"I sort of knew where he was coming from and it was all good. So I understand.

"I'm happy with how everything is progressing.

"I'm playing cricket at the moment, I'm fit and healthy and we (the Thunder) just won a Big Bash title, which was a pretty good feeling.

"So everything's going very well."