Golden Cap, but no golden handshake for 'shocked' Uzzie

Usman Khawaja said he’s at a loss to explain his absence from Australia's 50-over squad as his dominant white-ball form continued in the KFC Big Bash on Thursday, while also expressing concern over the safety of Geelong's GMHBA Stadium wicket table.

A week that begun with news of his ODI axing to compound the loss of his Test spot last month nearly got even worse for Khawaja in Geelong when he suffered a scare after tweaking his troublesome left knee while turning to take a second run.

Thankfully the joint he's had multiple surgeries on was fine, as he went on to stroke a match-defining 66 off 46 balls to take the BKT Golden Cap as the competition's leading run scorer and fire his Sydney Thunder to a last-over victory over the Melbourne Renegades.

Fellow ODI omission Shaun Marsh, who top scored with 42 off 33 in his Renegades debut, labelled Khawaja one of the best white-ball players in Australia and the numbers back up his claim.

The left-hander has hit 1607 runs at 54 in all white-ball cricket this year, is one of only six players to have scored over 1,000 ODI runs in 2019 and was consistently backed in by Justin Langer throughout this year's 50-over World Cup campaign.

But despite being named the Marsh One-Day Cup's player of the tournament last month, he was overlooked for January’s three-match ODI series in India and faces an uphill battle to reclaim his spot.

Asked what the message from Australia’s selectors had been, Khawaja said: "I don't think they could have said too much.

"They can't really tell me to score more runs – I'm one of the highest run scorers in international cricket. I scored plenty of runs when I came back here (in the Marsh Cup).

"I don't think there was much they could say and I don't think there was much I wanted to say back to them.

"It's disappointing, I copped it on the chin. I'm just looking forward to playing for the Thunder now."

Khawaja will be 36 by the time the next ODI World Cup rolls around in 2023, but says he's given no thought to whether he could still feature in Australia's plans for the tournament.

Selection chief Trevor Hohns flagged the 14-man squad which features the likes of Marnus Labuschagne, Peter Handscomb and Ashton Turner had been picked with an eye to that event.

"The performance of our white ball squads has been strong, and we are hoping to build the momentum towards the T20 World Cup at home at the end of the year and ultimately build towards the 2023 ICC World Cup in India," said Hohns.

It's nonetheless a bitter pill to swallow for Khawaja, who said he was blindsided by the move – unlike when he lost his Test spot during the Ashes.

"In all honesty I wasn't expecting to be dropped," said Khawaja, who averages 63 in 36 domestic 50-over innings since moving to Queensland in 2012.

"Normally when you're getting dropped, you feel like there's a chance. When I was at the Ashes over there, I thought, 'there's a chance (I'll get dropped) here.' You sort of see it coming.

"I didn't really see this one coming. It took me by a little bit of shock."

Khawaja's knee scare prompted him to tell Alex Hales, who pipped his opening partner for player-of-the-match honours after blasting 68 off 38, to run straight down the middle of the wicket to ensure neither player would need to change direction next to the pitch.

Umpires can award penalty runs to the fielding side if batters continue to run on the pitch after being warned.

The GMHBA Stadium is unusual in that it currently features just the single pitch in its drop-in wicket table, meaning batters have to make their ground and turn for second and third runs on softer grass rather than on a firm unused pitch.

The direction of the pitch has been altered this season runs so that it now runs north-south and while the track played true on Thursday in an entertaining contest, Khawaja's criticism comes ahead of the ground hosting six men's T20 World Cup games next year.

"They need to do something there - cut the grass shorter on either side of the wicket because I don't think that's good enough for high-level cricket," said Khawaja, who added night-time dew was another factor in the challenge in running between the wickets.

"I told Halesy to run down the middle of the wicket so I could run on the side of the wicket. I said, 'we're batting last, so it doesn't really matter if you run in the middle of the wicket, just run through the middle.'

"You shouldn't have to be doing that, you should have wickets on either side – you should have a minimum of three wickets I reckon, so you can run on at least one of them. I don't mind slipping on a wicket.

"At least cut the grass a lot shorter on the sides so you can at least have a chance to run on it."