Push on for Usman return
USMAN Khawaja’s bid to run the fitness gauntlet and answer the batting-crisis SOS shapes as an acid test for Australia’s commitment to restoring integrity to the Sheffield Shield.
Australia’s desperation to get Khawaja back for the first Test against India on December 6 was only intensified by yet another toporder shambles in the opening ODI loss to South Africa in Perth.
The even more audacious background push is the Australian Cricketers Association’s submission to have the 12-month bans handed to superstars Steve Smith and David Warner immediately quashed.
It’s understood Cricket Australia’s board will discuss the submission at a meeting in the first half of this week where the process will also start for finding a new chairman.
Khawaja has revealed he’s back running two weeks postsurgery on a meniscus tear in his left knee and Australian officials remain confident they can get their best and most important batsman back for one of the most highpressured series in memory against an Indian side high on confidence.
Australia must find a way to get a hit for Khawaja before any Test comeback is rubberstamped and the ideal option would be a Queensland Shield match against Victoria at the Gabba starting on November 27.
But that option has been put under the microscope by a recommendation in the cultural review which, in the words of former Test great Andrew Symonds, called on Cricket Australia to stop “playing God” with the Shield competition by pulling players in and out on a whim.
Clearly if Khawaja is fit to play a full Shield game, he would, but if there are concerns about locking him into a full four-day fixture so soon after surgery, Australian officials have indicated they will not tamper with the firstclass competition as they have in the past by inserting him for only one innings.
Khawaja may be forced to play a Futures League fixture for Queensland on November 26 or a club game where CA medical staff could have control over his workload without upsetting the enormous cultural upheaval the game is trying to enforce under new chief executive Kevin Roberts.