Australian coach Darren Lehmann has insisted on having a ‘private chat’ with opener Usman Khawaja after the southpaw made sensational comments against selection panel recently.
Khawaja along with Joe Burns were dropped for the final test against Sri Lanka where the team lost the series by 3-0. Despite being an under performer in the series, Khawaja felt that he was singled out among the squad which did not play to its potential.
“It was disappointing that Joe Burns and I were sort of the scapegoats for not performing,” Khawaja told Fairfax Media.
“I found it pretty fickle that the selectors dropped me for the third one.”
The comments of Khawaja has hit headlines ahead of the selection for the South Africa series that is scheduled to take place on November 3. However, Lehmann has said that he would have a private chat with the player and has confirmed that his recent comments would not have any impact on the selection for South Africa series.
“He is not on the back foot,” Lehmann told local reporters in Brisbane on Tuesday. “[But] I will chat to him privately. We would rather have these things played out between selectors and players.”
“Being on the selection panel for the test match, it was warranted,” Lehmann said of their omission in Colombo. “At the end of the day, there were different conditions and those two guys weren’t playing well enough – they averaged eight or seven in two test matches. We had to change something, but that doesn’t affect the summer at home. We have to work out what we think the best batting line-up is for the summer.”
Khawaja and Burns are two of the best performances for Australia since last summer and have shown their caliber against New Zealand and West Indies. However, the duo has failed miserably in the Sri Lanka tour where they averaged 13.75 and 8.50 runs respectively which eventually led to dropping them from the third test.