Usman Khawaja writes his Boxing Day story
Human beings tend to like familiar, comfortable things. Disquiet equals distress to many folks; familiar, known quantities are like big, fluffy blankets. People like things happening in a predictable way because that means there’s one less thing to worry about.
The fear of the unknown is real. Not knowing what will happen to your career. Not knowing what will happen to your life.
Nineteen days was supposedly the most a prisoner could spend in solitary confinement at Alcatraz Prison. Before the mental strain became too much.
Usman Khawaja has been wrestling with comparable uncertainty for far longer.
Business as usual
The traditional Boxing Day Test match got underway in Melbourne. It’s another symbol of familiarity in the cricketing world. This is just how it is and has been in Australia since 1968. It’s nice and comfortable and looks to have the usual elements we come to associate with the Baggy Greens.
By contrast, the day/night Test at Adelaide last month seemed an unholy perversion of this stately sport’s black-and-white respect for the way things had always been. There was apparently plenty wrong with it – Test cricket under lights, a pink ball, the possibility of New Zealand snatching a win on Australian soil, you name it.
But not today. For today, the gentleman’s game is back to its usual tricks.
The West Indies have put their opponents in to bat in the hope of catching them out (no pun intended) on a shifty looking pitch. But this is Australia batting first in a Boxing Day Test. There can only be one outcome.
David Warner begins with the kind of routine one would expect from an Australian batsman on Boxing Day. He races to 23 runs off 12 balls (the Aussie run rate climbed as high as nine runs an over at one point), and it looks like he’s stuck on his usual ‘destroy’ setting.
But just when it looks like this is going to be a very long day for the Windies, Warner’s rush of blood costs him his wicket – and his search for a Test hundred, at the only ground in his home country where he doesn’t have one, goes on.
One man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity. Usman Khawaja has been in good form for his country, but the serious knee injury he suffered in late 2014 must still hang in the back of his mind. The stage is set, steeped in Boxing Day tradition, and it’s up to Khawaja to buy back his confidence.
It all looks quite predictable. The run rate has stabilised somewhat after Warner’s early whirlwind, and Khawaja and Joe Burns are settling into a nice rhythm. Someone at the top is getting runs (that’s Joe Burns). After the early wicket, the number three is helping stabilise the innings somewhat. They build a partnership. It’s not quite Hayden and Ponting in South Africa in 2002, but it’s still pretty good.
The second session really sees the pair come to life.
Class is permanent
By now, Khawaja and Burns are in complete control of the bowling and they eventually put on a glorious 258- run partnership. The pair are akin to a high-performance Rolls Royce - no violence, no madness, just an ease and flow to their batting. Australia are looking dominant, they’re imposing their will on the game, in Melbourne, on Boxing Day.
This is a scenario that has been repeated, one would imagine, on countless Boxing Days in the past. It’s more in tune with the dominant Australia that generations of fans have come to know, it’s what they have come to expect from the Baggy Greens. And it has come courtesy these two.
Burns and Khawaja are matching each other stroke for stroke (pun mildly intended). The individual score of one never gets too far away from that of the other – it’s the most equitable ‘partnership’ in recent memory.
Burns gets to his hundred first. His off stump discipline and willingness to leave a fair amount of deliveries have rightfully drawn attention. A few balls later, Khawaja reaches his own three-figure milestone.
Even though there’s the small matter of Burns having got a hundred of his own, this is clearly Khawaja’s moment. He looks satisfied, even relieved, to have got there. Despite the tough return to mental and physical fitness, despite the centuries before this one, this 144 at the MCG is the standout chapter in return of Usman Khawaja.
The ACL redemption
It’s nice, comforting to see his presence. Khawaja’s been proficient through the leg-side and has generally used his feet pretty well (sample the boundary to reach his half-century, or his only six). Despite a generally lacklustre Windies showing, it has been a display of quality and class.
It’s been a privilege watching him. Khawaja’s story of redemption has been poetic and fitting: it has taken him twelve months to go from holding together a shredded knee and fearing for his career to writing his traditional Boxing Day story.
Fans and critics may see this innings as a case of high performance, delivered (to borrow a phrase from Accenture). But Usman Khawaja says he’s grateful just to be playing cricket again.
Somehow, it feels like the most perfect Boxing Day story in a long time.