DANE ELDRIDGE: Usman Khawaja injury is best outcome for changing of the guard for Travis Head to open
Usman Khawaja has proven he can still deliver for Australia even when he’s got the same range of lower back movement as a heavily pregnant woman.
By being dramatically ruled out of the second test due to injury, the veteran opener has inflicted an unlikely yet seismic blow on this Ashes series.
How?
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.By finally answering Australia’s most burning question- and not the one about whether a dodgy back can be plausibly blamed on three days golfing with the boys.
After cycling through a carousel of options to replace David Warner including Steve Smith, Nathan McSweeney, Sam Konstas and Marnus Labuschagne, Australia had given up on ever being 0-150 at lunch again.
In fact, the search for an opener had become so futile we’re still re-tooling Mitch Marsh in the background and offering up Nathan Lyon for the second innings in Perth.
But with the tricky issue of Khawaja now dealt with - through no help of our cabal of gun-shy selectors - the seas have parted to reveal Australia’s Next Top Warner- and all this time he’s been under our noses like a thick broom-brush mo.
As we know, Head unfurled a match-winning innings in the series opener that emphatically proved Australia to be indisputably more dangerous with him at the top of the order.
Put simply, it’s a fierce over-correction from the Justin Langer era - a coach rissoled also by player power - with McDonald, Cummins and Bailey now overseeing the squad like the three brothers from Full House.
However, Khawaja was always likely to be selected if fit despite his lean returns because Australia’s selectors nowadays treat dropping a player like passing a kidney stone.
Under the leadership trio of coach Andrew McDonald, captain Pat Cummins and chief selector George Bailey, playing for Australia has become like taking a job with the local council or the Sicilian Mafia- it’s harder to get out than it is to get in.
But with the difficult Khawaja decision made on their behalf, it mandates the hierarchy to give Aussies what they want - and the Poms what they don’t want - by unleashing TravBall 2.0.
And in hindsight, it was a lay down misere decision Australia should’ve made all along.
Head revealed this week he’d always had an inkling for opening the batting, admitting he’d offer his turbocharged services whenever a vacancy presented.
“We went around in circles a little bit once Steve (Smith) had a crack at it,” Head revealed. “And each time I sort of just put my name in and said, ‘Why not?’”
It means our field-spreading saviour has been with us all along, and this is why Khawaja’s injury is a blessing in disguise.
England may have already demonstrated this summer they’re more focused on blocking out the truth than good bowling, but they’re not the only team in this Ashes series living in a post-truth bubble.
If pure cricket currency was legal tender at Australia’s selection table, Khawaja’s record of one century in the last two years would’ve seen him put out to pasture long ago.
But despite a six ball vigil in Perth as painful as his range of movement in the field, a botched preparation with three days of golf and his excuse of the Optus Stadium pitch being a “piece of shit” - probably because it wasn’t cut as a dog-leg par five - its still not enough evidence in a players utopia where it’s the cattle who wield the prod.
When Warner can nominate his own retirement date, Marnus Labuschagne can remain during an 18 month form slump - even recently admitting he should’ve been dropped - and Smith can promote himself to open the batting purely because he was bored, the team’s management style can only be generously described as ‘benevolent’.
It’s a far cry from the days when servants like Ian Healy and Damien Martyn would be savagely cut adrift with barely a phone call.
Put simply, it’s a fierce over-correction from the Justin Langer era - a coach rissoled also by player power - with McDonald, Cummins and Bailey now overseeing the squad like the three brothers from Full House.
Of course, this team can be justified in its methods after years of success.
But with rubberstamp decisions like Khawaja being outsourced to injury, it’s no wonder Bailey has been criticised for being too close to the players- because Danny Tanner would’ve never evicted one of the Olsen twins.
Nevertheless, let us rejoice as Australians.
Despite a decision made by the medicos, Khawaja postpones a catty divorce, Australia gets its craved new-ball pyrotechnist, and best of all, the Poms get their worst nightmare.
