"He was a terror as a kid"- Usman Khawaja opens up on David Warner's 'cherry' prank during childhood
Veteran Australian opener Usman Khawaja has played a lot of cricket alongside teammate David Warner from the age-group level and has naturally made several great memories.
One such memory that Khawaja hilariously recalled showed how mischievous Warner was growing up. During tea intervals in the games, Warner and Khawaja used to take cherries and stain other kids' clothes knowing that it will be difficult to clean up the shirt.
Speaking to Fox Cricket, here's what Usman Khawaja had to say about David Warner and the prank with cherries:
"Davey was an absolute menace. He was a terror as a kid honestly. One of the stories I bring up all the time that I love was we used to have tea time and he always gravitated towards the cherries. He is a smart man and he knows those cherries stain. So we would pick up a cherry and chuck it at other people and teammates and the mum’s would be blowing up at the end of the day because they couldn’t get these cherry stains off. It is impossible to get cherry stains off."
Usman Khawaja also compared David Warner's personality with that of the late Shane Warne. Just like Warner, even Warner is a subject of mixed opinions among the cricketing fraternity due to several reasons. On this, he added:
"He (Warner) has that persona about him, he is a bit like Warnie, he is polarising. Like Warnie was and a lot of Australia loves Warnie. There was a lot of people I grew up with who didn’t like Warnie and there were people sitting on either side, very polarising. Davey is the same. He is very polarising. You either love him or you don’t. There is nothing really in the middle."
Usman Khawaja on David Warner's nature off the field
Because of David Warner's on-field aggression and in-your-face attitude, Usman Khawaja believes his opening partner is thought to be the same off the field as well. However, Khawaja spoke about how helpful and humble Warner is as a person.
On this, he stated:
"Off the field he is one of the most giving people I have ever met. He sits down with random people all the time and just chats to them like an everyday Aussie bloke. You would have no idea that he is a Test cricketer and one of the greats of the game. He is the first person I see whether it is family or friends, he is like what do you want? I will get it for you. What do you need? I will do this or that for you."
Khawaja further added:
“If I was ever in trouble he would be one of the first people I would call because I know he would be the first one to answer and the first one to help me out. He is that kind of guy and that is the side you don’t see of him and he doesn’t show that to a lot of people, so people just see what they see on the field and make up their minds, which is fair enough. But you don’t know the real David Warner behind the scenes. He can be quite rough even off the field, but deep down inside there is a really good human in there."
Usman Khawaja had also been in full support of David Warner when the latter was a part of a controversial column written by former Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson.