Usman Khawaja played a fine innings on his own terms

Great opening batsmen come and go, but Usman Khawaja’s trailblazing role as Australia’s first Muslim Test cricketer and pathfinder for our growing band of local South Asian cricketers is his enduring legacy.

He announced his retirement on Friday and fused his two great Australian cricket achievements: “I’m a proud Muslim coloured boy from Pakistan who was told he would never play for the Australian cricket team – look at me now.”

Australian Test cricket was largely a monocultural sport. Of course, the 1868 Aboriginal Cricket Team tour of England highlighted Indigenous sporting prowess and predated the first recognised Test Match by nine years, but Test cricket remained a pretty white bread affair for decades, until Faith Thomas, an Aboriginal nurse from South Australia, became the first Indigenous person to play Test cricket for Australia, taking on the England team in Melbourne in February 1958.

Thirty-eight years later, Jason Gillespie became the first Indigenous man to play Test cricket for Australia, in 1996, followed by Scott Boland in 2021, and Brendan Doggett, who debuted last November.

Khawaja helped further shatter the stereotype and grew increasingly confident in using cricket to shine a light on broader issues.

Although many like to think sport is a politics-free zone, sprinter Peter Norman’s role in the 1968 Olympics racial equality protest salute during the 200-metre medal ceremony, and the three-decade ban on Australian national cricket and rugby teams touring South Africa suggest otherwise.

However, it was only in 2021 that Australian cricket developed an overt political character when Test captain Pat Cummins started talking about social and political issues like climate change. The following year he “took a knee” supporting equality.

His actions opened the door to Khawaja, who wore shoes during a training session with foundational political messages after the Hamas raid on Israel in October 2023. Cricket Australia banned him wearing the shoes during matches. Then he wore a black armband to support civilians in Gaza and in memory of a friend’s wife, and subsequently lobbied Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to sanction Israel over Gaza, and ban gambling advertisements.

Cummins’ continuing success as captain insulated him from pushback, but Khawaja was not accorded similar protection, and Cricket Australia sometimes stood on him at the same time that they celebrated him.

At Friday’s retirement press conference, Khawaja said he copped racial stereotyping criticism for five days straight for playing golf before the Perth Test when a back spasm prevented him batting. He felt other players would have been referred to as lads or larrikins.

Khawaja’s overall tally of 6206 Tests runs at 43.39 puts him 15th on the all-time list for Australia. He scored more centuries than Doug Walters, Ian Chappell or Bill Lawry, and played 44 tests between 2011 and 2019, but was dropped frequently. In 2022, he returned to glory when Travis Head was ruled out with COVID-19 and proved one of the world’s most prolific Test openers.

On Sunday, Khawaja ends his Test career where he debuted in 2011, on the SCG near where his family lived after migrating from Pakistan in 1991.

He is a unique Australian: few other cricketers have played a finer innings on, or off, the field.

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