Lazy. Soft. Doesn’t care. Mark Waugh heard it all and more from the moment he came out of the Test cricket womb until his final Baggy Green breath. It drove him mad. “Why on Earth wouldn’t I do my best when there’s so much at stake?” he wrote before retiring. “I’ve carried that ‘casual, lazy’ tag for years, a bit like England’s David Gower. It just isn’t true.” Speaking a decade on from giving it all away, it still riled him. “I got pigeonholed,” he said. “But you don’t play 100 Tests if you’re not a tough player, and I played in winning teams.”
Or make 20 centuries. Or end up in the Hall of Fame. Look at his contributions in Melbourne in 1992, Jamaica 1995, Port Elizabeth 1997 or Chennai in 1998 for evidence.
Usman Khawaja knows that frustration well, more acutely now than at any stage in his international journey. Specifically, how a drought of runs from a player known for aesthetic charm can so easily manifest into all of the boring slurs about commitment to the cause. Little wonder how satisfied he was to salute his hundred at the SCG.
“It’s disappointing,” he began when speaking of the predicament. “When I am scoring runs I’m elegant, when I’m not I’m lazy. I can’t seem to win when things aren’t going well. It’s not like I’m going out there and not trying. But it’s something I’ve dealt with my whole career.” Words that could just as easily been Waugh’s.
Khawaja was not disputing the understandable pressure he was under after a modest 2017. He felt it when walking out. He also knows he will struggle again. But he is not shy about dismissing the tenor of those hotter takes. “At the Waca I felt I felt like I batted well and grinded out a 50 and then got out and I was still getting nailed,” he told ABC.
The former Australian opener Chris Rogers was instructive when speaking about his former team-mate’s triumph. “The criticism is that he is almost carefree at times and isn’t trying,” he said, “but you know that is complete garbage.”
Khawaja asked the fellow left-hander’s advice after his Boxing Day failure. “He wanted to know about facing a couple of the England bowlers. It threw me a little bit because he’s a quiet guy. But it shows he’s been thinking about his game and the pressures out there. And, to be honest, he knew all the answers.”
Rogers added that Khawaja’s sixth century reminded him of the Adelaide day-night gem he constructed last summer. “He knows the formula. When he plays like that it is clear he is one of the best in Australia. He knew he had a point to prove and that means pressure.”
It was a box ticked – an Ashes century, completed on the ground where he has vast history. In turn, it was no normal response when he reached three figures, strolling halfway to the Members Stand before then going through the routine. It was in his mother’s direction he was walking. “Apparently my mum was wearing a pink hijab,” he said, smiling. She was, in keeping with the theme of the day. “Very cute. She’s always been someone I can lean on.”
His captain then joined him for a long hug. They played together as pups in the 2010-11 Ashes thrashing, their journeys wildly different thereafter. Into his ear, Steve Smith told him to enjoy the emotion but to make it a big one. So he did. “An Ashes hundred felt really far away before the start of the game,” Khawaja said. “It’s amazing how quickly things can change.”
That his success came against spin – at times it ragged off the sympathetic surface – provided further satisfaction given the lack of trust shown in him during Australia’s recent subcontinental adventures. When urged to let him play on all surfaces by Shane Warne after play, Smith was receptive. “Fair call,” he said. “We have seen out here that wicket was turning and he used his feet really well and had good plans and stuck with them. That’s the key: you have got to do it for long periods of time.”
That is a responsibility Khawaja would relish as a senior player, especially with a tour against Pakistan in the UAE scheduled for October. “I’d love to be playing for Australia every single Test match,” he said. “I always knew I could score runs on these sorts of wickets.”
In reality, it may be that the cliched criticisms of his game never disappear. But if he can pile on runs where he has not before it will bolster claims for him to one day be considered a champion of Waugh’s standing. With the confidence of what Khawaja has now achieved in his home town, he will travel with confidence that he once again is heading very much in the right direction.
