Usman Khawaja Australia cricket team future – will he play another test for Australia? Will Travis Head remain as an opener?
“Every Test presents a new challenge. We have a red ball in Adelaide; we haven’t done that very often recently. It’s great that Trav has put his hand up to do that in the past. We haven’t gone very far down that path. We’ve lived in that example, so will we continue to do that? We’ll have to wait and see.”
Travis Head at Adelaide Oval.Credit: Getty Images
News that Wood, who scored just 10 points in Perth before the knee flare-up, will miss the remainder of the series could also impact Australia’s opening selection.
The other way Khawaja can come back is by opening the room in the middle order, with Head as the opener. Playing Josh Inglis at No 7 showed that he was not seen as a direct swap for Head and Khawaja would hardly turn down the opportunity to strike a new ground after the new ball had been blunted by others.
“The assumption is he can just open up,” McDonald said of Khawaja. “So I think he has the flexibility. We would like to think that all of our batsmen have the flexibility to perform anywhere in that order.
“We’re open to what the batting pattern will look like going forward if there are any moving parts. If Trav gets open, if he gets back into the middle, all of that will play out. We’re doing it test by test.”
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When Marnus Labuschagne was benched at No.3 in 2019 to retain his place alongside Steve Smith, Khawaja wondered why players were left out entirely instead of trying them out in different positions.
He said in 2023: “There wasn’t a discussion about, ‘Maybe we can cut Uzzy to five or six.’ It was, ‘We’ll leave Uzzy and keep everyone else where they are.’ That was their choice, and that’s okay.”
Three years later, Khawaja has made a strong case for his own adaptability. When Khawaja returned to the Test squad in Sydney in January 2022, he did not do so as an opener, instead batting at No. 5 in the order to replace Head, who contracted COVID-19.
Khawaja made centuries in every innings of the match, demanding a stay in the next game when Head pushed Marcus Harris on his return to Hobart. Khawaja became an opener thanks to his flexibility of thinking, with McDonald and Cummins increasingly having a say in the batting order.
It would be ironic, if not poetic, for Khawaja’s final recall to occur at the innings spot where his famous comeback began, but McDonald’s remarks on Tuesday certainly left room for that possibility.
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