‘One of the greatest openers of all time’: Khawaja backs under-fire Warner

Usman Khawaja had one word when asked if David Warner would remain his top order partner for the fourth Test at Old Trafford, beginning on Wednesday.

“Yep,” was the succinct reply from Khawaja, who said opening the batting was a “thankless job”.

“From my point of view Dave Warner has been one of the greatest openers of all time,” Khawaja said at training on Sunday. “It is him and ‘Haydos’ [Matthew Hayden] right up there for Australia I reckon, the top two ever, so I will always back Davey no matter what, and I think the other guys will, too.”

Warner is facing laser-like scrutiny following his double failure against nemesis Stuart Broad during the third Test at Headingley, which England won by three wickets to keep the series alive at 2-1. Warner was caught at second slip for 4 and 1, reviving memories of his dreadful 2019 tour, when he scored just 95 runs at 9.5 and was dismissed seven times by Broad, who has claimed Warner’s wicket 17 times in all.

However, Khawaja, the leading run-scorer in this series with 356 at 59, believes there is a wider context that needs to be considered, particularly batting in England against the Dukes ball.

He pointed to the second Test at Lord’s, when Australia were sent in under heavy skies. Khawaja and Warner forged an opening partnership of 73, with Warner going on to make 66 - his best score in nine innings. They then followed up with 63 in the second innings, their third partnership in a row of 61 or better.

“It’s massive,” Khawaja said of their Lord’s partnerships in a Test Australia won by 43 runs. “It [opening the batting] is a thankless job. We got a really good start at Lord’s in heavy overhead conditions. I got out last over before lunch, but that sets up the game for us.

“Steve Smith came out and batted in the sunshine and made a beautiful hundred. I think as an opener sometimes you don’t always record your good days on how many runs you made. Sometimes it’s just about grinding through those tough times, which we did in that Test match. We’ve had three 50-run partnerships against Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad. That is as tough as it gets in England. You have to pay some respect to that.”

Khawaja claimed it was more difficult to bat in England than Australia.

“I don’t think anyone has felt in at any stage,” he said. “That is England with Dukes balls and weather and conditions. Whereas Australia, sometimes you can kind of lock in and feel like, ‘I am in now, I can feel like stretching this for a while’. Where here it doesn’t feel like that. The ball is always doing enough, nibbling about.”

Headingley had an X-factor, with England able to recall express bowler Mark Wood after injury. His first wicket came an hour into the match, uprooting Khawaja’s middle stump with a thunderbolt. And Wood cleaned up the tail, claiming 5-34 in a player-of-the-match performance as Australia lost 6-23.

“It swung,” Khawaja said of the delivery that defeated him. “If that ball didn’t swing I would have hit it, it just swung late and at 90-odd miles an hour (145kph), if you are off by a little bit sometimes it gets you, and he got me.

“That first spell was pretty fiery. He looked like he had his beans. I was at the other end for most of it, Marnus [Labuschagne] faced a fair bit, it wasn’t [just] that [pace]. He was swinging it, too. That’s what made it a little bit more difficult, when you’re bowling at that pace and just swinging it, that’s what makes it difficult. He was doing it beautifully.”

For Khawaja, pace alone isn’t an issue.

“You face it all the time … guys bowling 95/96 miles-per-hour spells to us back in Australia,” he said. “When I came back at the SCG and scored twin hundreds [18 months ago], Mark Wood was playing that game, too. I love him, he’s a good competitor, funny guy.

“He just runs in and gives everything for the team. He’s great for the game. You are used to playing fast bowling…if you can’t hit fast bowling you aren’t going to make it in Test cricket.”

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