Road to Success

When Usman Khawaja pulled out LeBron James’ ‘silencer’ at the SCG last year, you could sense a bit of liberation in his celebration. Like he’d broken free of everything that had held him back from wanting to be exactly who he wants to be on the field. As we’d learn later, Khawaja wasn’t quite “silencing” his critics or detractors when he started marching with his hands pumping downwards upon reaching what was his ninth Test century. The elegant left-hander was if anything putting his own doubts to rest over whether he’d ever return to Test cricket.

A year on, as Khawaja brought up his 13th Test century, starting off 2023 the way he’d started off 2022, his little jig seemed more like a pure celebration of where he is in life. A period where he’s able to be himself on and off the field, seemingly immune to however it’s perceived by anyone watching. It’s not every day after all that you pull off an impromptu dance move like that in front of over 25,000 people, who are all on their feet cheering you on. Even if we have seen him dabble in it before albeit on social media.

It was also symptomatic of the level of supreme confidence the 36-year-old seems to be approaching his cricket with in this his 12th year of Test cricket. And the way he’s owned his approach in this his second coming at this level ever since he paid an ode to LeBron this time last year. So much so that it seems strange that it has taken him till the fifth Test of what has been a very batting-friendly summer to score a century.

For, since his dramatic return to the side at his former home ground 12 months ago, Khawaja has been batting the way we saw him dancing on Day 2, like he owns the stage. Like he’s got control over his cricketing destiny for once in his career. And he’s loving it.

It’s not to say that the SCG pitch this time has posed any major threats so far. Nor has the South African bowling for that matter, except a fiery burst of short-pitched bowling from Anrich Nortje before the tea break on Thursday, when Khawaja was in his 160s. But it’s still already been an innings that’s summed up this incredible period where he’s got over a thousand runs. It’s in the trust he’s developed in his technique but also his approach to building an innings.

Gone are the little anxieties over technique and approach. It’s all about finding a method and sticking to it. He’d been out hanging his bat out and getting nicked off behind the wicket on a few occasions previously in the season. But rather than fuss over it, Khawaja has gone away in the nets and worked diligently with Michael Di Venuto on getting into positions where he is able to judge what to play at and what to leave alone with even better precision than usual.

The trait of his batting that stood out the most though was his ability to manipulate the two South African spinners on a dry pitch that is beginning to turn. We saw him do that very efficiently, and to great effect, in Pakistan and to an extent in Sri Lanka too. The way he’s started backing himself to go deep in his crease and negotiate whatever turn and bounce the spinner is able to generate off the surface. While doing so, he’s also added a lot of scoring options to his repertoire, and thereby been able to build on this commitment he’s made to dealing with the spin challenge in his own way. We’ll leave it to the professor of batting, Steve Smith, who notched up his 30th Test ton alongside his longstanding teammate, to describe just how “comfortable” Khawaja is with his batting currently.

“Think he’s just really comfortable the way he’s playing. He’s got scoring options all around, if you set a field a certain way, he can play a certain way to get a boundary and force you to put someone there, then play another way and force you to put someone there. He’s just playing the game really well. He’s got the horizontal bat shots against spin which are really effective, he hasn’t played the reverse as much as I thought he would have today, but probably didn’t need to because the lack of spin there was out there.

“At the moment he’s at the top of his game, he’s scoring runs at will and batting beautifully so at the moment think he’s pretty comfortable and playing really nicely.”

That’s exactly what Khawaja has done at the SCG over the last two days though. He’s thwarted the South Africans at every step and in many ways got them to bowl where he wants them to. And then put them away. His twinkle toes during the celebration were also perhaps a sign of how well and rhythmically his feet have started to move when he’s up against spin these days.

This wonderful phase in his batting career also sets him up nicely for the one challenge he’s never got a chance to overcome in his career. Astonishing really when you think that Khawaja is yet to play a Test on Indian soil. Maybe it’s had to do with the constant doubts that have rested in many cricketing minds, apart from his own, over his ability to counter the Indian spinners in their backyard. This is not to say that it’ll be any easier than it would have been for him to get the better of them at any other stage of his career. But you just get a feeling that he couldn’t be in a better state of mind to do so. And also that when he does get there, he’ll do it in his way, and own every bit of it, even if it means breaking into a little jig like he did at the SCG.