EDITORIAL: Uzzie’s parting shot an unedifying end to innings

Before he made his international Test debut in 2011, Australian cricket had never seen another player like Usman Khawaja.

He was, in his own words, a “proud Muslim coloured boy from Pakistan who was told that he would never play for the Australian cricket team”.

Khawaja will end his career after the SCG Test as that team’s 15th highest Test run scorer. In a poetic twist, the ground is not far from where his family first lived in Australia after emigrating from Pakistan in 1991.

“I lived just up the road from the SCG, on Cook Road to be exact, and I’ll never forget when I was younger, I saw Michael Slater drive in his red Ferrari,” Khawaja recalled of those early years.

“I couldn’t believe my luck. I just saw a Test cricketer! As a boy, whose parents were barely scraping through and trying to provide for their kids in a little two-bedroom apartment, I thought, ‘One day, I’m going to be a Test cricketer and one day, I can drive whatever I want.’

“Never did I think that God would grant me such a wish.”

Whether by God or his own talent and toil, he got that wish.

Across the past 15 years, Khawaja has thrilled and frustrated Australians cricketing fans— and selectors.

When he is in form, he is capable of big performances, and run totals to match.

But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. He was dropped from the side eight times. For most cricketers, that seventh axing, at age 32 following the 2019 Ashes series, would have spelled the end of a career.

But to his immense credit, Khawaja fought his way back into the side for the 2022 season and was once again making big run totals.

It was a feat of resilience, persistence, and a determination to prove his haters wrong.

And he amassed plenty of those. Khawaja has never been shy about his political or religious beliefs, making him somewhat of an outlier in the Australian sporting landscape.

He and his family have been the subject of racial abuse online and have received death threats across the years. This is plainly unacceptable and abhorrent.

However, Khawaja did himself a disservice by insinuating that commentary from ex-players and pundits about his injury battles and recent poor run of form was somehow racially motivated.

To say that criticism of his decision to compete in a golf tournament the day before the Ashes opener in Perth — which it was suggested contributed to the back spasms which plagued his innings there and ruled him out of the Brisbane Test — relied on “racial stereotypes” is an overreach and detracts from the genuine discrimination he and others have faced.

Khawaja ended his retirement speech by saying he hoped he had inspired children, particularly those who felt different, or like they didn’t belong.

“I’m here to tell you that you can do whatever you want. You’ve just got to keep trying,” he said.

Trying, and not relying on excuses when things don’t go your way.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.