Usman Khawaja has undoubtedly been in the form of his life in the months gone by and that has been evident with his free-flowing ability to score across all formats. Khawaja has also batted with effortless ease and at the same time looked extremely graceful. On the second day of the Basin Reserve test, Khawaja registered his fourth test ton and built a solid base for Australia.
After the day’s play, he interacted with the press and said that it was the backing of head coach Darren Lehmann which helped him a lot. The southpaw also said that in the initial years of his career, he just played to cement his place in the side. “It’s hard to put a finger on one thing – I’m not sure if there is one thing,” Khawaja said. “But I always felt when I first played for Australia that I was sort of playing for my spot a little bit. I never really felt like I was in the team, felt like I was sort of looking over my shoulder,” said Khawaja.
“This time it came around, I scored a hundred first game and that sort of relieved the pressure a little bit. But even before I played that first game, Boof (Darren Lehmann) sort of had a chat with me and just told me to relax. He said I’d get a fair crack at it. So that kind of helped too. “It’s just been a really relaxed atmosphere. It’s what you want when you’re playing at the highest level. Because there’s enough pressure and whatever stuff goes on around it, you just want to get into the best position and best head-space possible. It helps that we’ve played some pretty decent cricket since I’ve come back, we’ve won a lot of games which always helps,” he added.