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Khawaja slips comfortably into Test clothes on ‘amazing’ day

Usman Khawaja understands his return to the Australian Test side is temporary, but reflected emotionally on his “dream” day at the SCG

In the course of a post-play media interaction as thoughtful as it was lengthy, Stuart Broad reflected on the differing emotions he felt at being left out of England's team for the first Vodafone Ashes Test and how it compared to a similar scenario he encountered at the start of the 2020 home summer.

At the Gabba last month, when confronted by a seamer's pitch at a venue he ranks alongside Trent Bridge and Wanderers in Johannesburg as his favourite grounds for bowling, he admitted to being miffed but he understood the decision given injury had sidelined him for preceding months.

At Southampton in 2020 however, when advised he was being left out of the starting line-up for England's Test against the West Indies having returned from the preceding tour of South Africa as his team's leading wicket-taker, he was deeply annoyed for an entirely different reason.

Flawless Khawaja delights SCG, Broad takes five

"I felt like the shirt belonged to me," Broad said tonight of the England kit he was fit to wear against the West Indies but was denied the chance due to selection politics.

Given they occupy differing ends of the Australia men's team's fashion continuum, Usman Khawaja would never admit to donning Travis Head's shirt.

But the same principle will apply when selectors finalise their line-up for the fifth and final Vodafone Test at Hobart's Blundstone Arena starting next Friday.

Assuming full fitness and according to skipper Pat Cummins' pre-game guarantee, Head will return having sat out the Sydney Test due to a positive COVID-19 result and Khawaja will resume his duties running out spare batting gloves and helping with pre-play fielding drills.

He might have just played the most special innings of his 11-year Test career and enjoyed the most "beautiful" day of many he's celebrated as a professional cricketer, but Khawaja understands better than ever how the system works.

After all, he was a beneficiary of the 'last in, first out' selection mantra in 2015.

That's when, after scoring a consecutive hundreds against New Zealand only to strain a hamstring in the process, his place was taken by Shaun Marsh who peeled off a career-high 182 against West Indies in Hobart and was promptly dropped next game when Khawaja recovered.

"I knew it was one game for the series," Khawaja said this evening of his likely short-lived return to the Test outfit.

"Heady's going to be back next game, he's going to be fit, I'm replacing him.

Back with a bang: Khawaja delights SCG with ton

"I understand the process and I'm not against that process either.

"We're winning, we're playing really well.

"In my mind it's probably this series it was only going to be one game and then move forward.

"At the end of the day I just wanted to contribute.

"I wasn't thinking a hundred ... 'just see if you can contribute to a win here, that's all you're back in the team for'."

When Khawaja scored his previous Test ton, against Sri Lanka at Canberra in early 2019, it came against an altogether different backdrop.

He had missed the start of that summer due a knee injury, then endured a difficult off-field issue that deeply affected his family and was even subjected to running on-field commentary regarding his tenuous place in Australia's set-up by Sri Lanka's chirpy wicketkeeper, Niroshan Dickwella.

"No runs under his belt, no runs under his belt," Dickwella would loudly call to his teammates before shifting his focus to Australia's Ashes tour to the UK later that year.

"I really wish you could get some runs here ... I don’t want you to feel bad after the series watching your team play on TV."

Khawaja did make runs – 101 of them before then skipper Tim Paine declared Australia's second innings closed.

But the world closed in again at the start of the Ashes campaign when the left-hander posted scores of 13, 40, 36, 2, 8 and 23 before losing his place to Marnus Labuschagne.

That might have been where the 35-year-old's 44-Test journey ended, if not for an innate competitiveness that is now neatly hidden beneath an unflappable exterior, and the long-known recognition he is one of the game's purest batting talents.

But it's not only aesthetics that granted Khawaja 'favourite returning son' status among the SCG crowd over the past two days, as he was embraced by the city in which his parents still live and for which he proudly turns out as a Sydney Thunder "foundation member" in the KFC BBL.

Among a New South Wales sporting fraternity that habitually and hurtfully refers to Queenslanders as "cane toads", Khawaja believes his story as a child from an immigrant family who himself moved interstate in search of opportunities strikes a resonant note.

"I joke around with the boys about my past and where I come from, we talk about the American dream and I call it the Australian dream but I'm quite serious," he said today.

"I am living the Australian dream, my parents came over here from Pakistan to give our family a better life.

"I'm representing Australia in our national sport, something I absolutely love doing.

"I've gone through a lot of hard times, broken down a lot of barriers to get to where I am right now and I think at some level, people can relate to that."

Khawaja admits he was nervous prior to the Test starting, and more so when he headed to the crease late on day one after Australia had lost the wickets of Marcus Harris and Labuschagne in successive overs.

However, as someone who prides himself on remaining cool under the most intense pressure, he believes that anxiety was largely founded on his absence from competitive cricket for a month as he sat on the sidelines with the Test team.

And he was concerned it might take him a while to rediscover the "rhythm" of the game out in the middle.

But those fleeting doubts were drowned out by the genuine warmth of the ovation he received on return to the Test arena after two and a half years on the periphery, a reception that grew in volume and vehemence with every boundary scored and each milestone crossed on his way to a ninth Test match century.

"Honestly, it was probably the most touching, amazing, humbling feeling out there today getting that hundred," Khawaja said of the moment that was witnessed by his pregnant wife Rachel and the couple's 18-months-old daughter Aisha.

"The roar that went up, they were chanting 'Uzzie' as I was coming off the field.

"It's the stuff you dream of, and I never expected to have it.

"It usually happens to bowlers, batsmen don't usually get that kind of treatment.

"So to have that was unbelievable."

It also ensures the shirt will continue to be his, whenever opportunity dictates he don it.

Vodafone Men's Ashes

Squads

Australia: Pat Cummins (c), Steve Smith (vc), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nic Maddinson, Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner

England: Joe Root (c), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Schedule

First Test: Australia won by nine wickets

Second Test: Australia won by 275 runs

Third Test: Australia won by an innings and 14 runs

Fourth Test: January 5-9, SCG

Fifth Test: January 14-18, Blundstone Arena