Sidelined Khawaja faces stiff challenge

AUSTRALIAN captain Tim Paine is confident Usman Khawaja will “bounce back” after for the fourth Test.

But with a brigade of talented, hungry Australian batsmen snapping at his heels, the 32-year-old — who has played 44 Tests — could find that harder than he thinks.

The Australian selectors, and Paine, like Marcus Harris, and consider him a player that with time “could make big Test runs”.

It’s a confidence necessary to display publicly but backing the Victorian in ahead of Khawaja, an established, senior player with two Test hundreds as an opener, was a behind-the-scenes tick too.

The Australian batting in the Ashes, Steven Smith aside, has, however been brittle. Harris was dismissed cheaply again last night.

It can’t be ruled out that Khawaja could find himself back in the team as soon as the final Test at The Oval should the pile-up of failures continue.

But even should that occur, Khawaja’s status as a mustpick player has been eroded by a poor return in his past 10 Tests, with just one century, and an average below 30.

Khawaja arguably won his way on the Ashes squad with his stunning one-day resurgence, including two hundreds in India in March, after a lean home Test summer.

Still recovering from a World Cup hamstring injury, he didn’t play in the AllAustralian match at Southampton, after which the 17-man squad was picked.

But there were four other batsmen who did play in that game and three who could bat at No.3 in the Test team, evidence of the growing queue at the selector’s disposal.

Joe Burns and Kurtis Patterson both have Test hundreds, and Will Pucovski is so highly regarded he was a last-minute decision away from making his debut against Sri Lanka during the home summer.

Peter Handscomb also played at Southampton, has two Test hundreds, remains on a Cricket Australia contract and despite exterior criticism of his batting technique is well thought of by selectors.