Khawaja positive despite tough tour

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Australia batsman Usman Khawaja remains positive despite what has been a very difficult tour of Sri Lanka both for him personally and the team as a whole.

Khawaja has been left out of Australia’s ODI tour to South Africa that gets underway in late September and although he is on standby, he doesn’t expect to make the trip.

Even though this tour has been challenging and Khawaja’s place in the team is now in doubt, he is keen to continue to enjoy his cricket.

Ahead of the final T20I in Colombo, Khawaja told cricket.com.au: “I’m pretty excited for what’s coming up still.

“I love playing cricket, even the times when you’re struggling and it’s not fun.

“Without the lows you don’t get the highs, that’s part of sport and that’s part of cricket and it’s what makes this game so much fun.

“So I’m looking forward to getting back (to Australia).

“Obviously I’m not in the one-day set-up, I’m on standby I’m assuming for a couple of the batsmen so I’ll go back and play some cricket for Queensland.

“I’ll at least be playing cricket, I haven’t really played a lot of cricket in the last month or so because I was out of the Test team and then I wasn’t in the one-day team in the start (of the series in Sri Lanka).”

Khawaja’s involvement in the T20I series is evidence of how quickly things can change, after a disappointing Test series, the batsman found himself excluded from the limited overs squad and only returned after an injury to Shaun Marsh.

The Queenslander doesn’t feel that he is out of the frame when it comes to the Test team but is focused on doing what he needs to do at the domestic level to keep himself in the selector’s minds.

Khawaja added: “I don’t even feel that I’m not amongst it.

“I think the selectors already have a fairly good idea of what they’re going to pick for the first Test anyway.

“I don’t think a lot’s going to change from now to then unless something really drastic happens.

“At the moment, yeah I’ve missed out a couple of times but that happens as a cricketer.

“You just keep working hard and doing things off the field and the other stuff takes control.

“I’m not really worried. I’ve learned from the last few years the more I worry about myself the less good cricket I play.”

The left-hander has suffered a lean tour but is keen to reflect on the good and bad and take some positives out of the experience.

He concluded: “There’s a lot, both in the good and bad column

“It would be silly not to reflect back on this tour and take some positives and negatives out of that.

“But it (the India Test tour) is so far way at the moment, it’s hard to think about it.

“There’s so much cricket coming up this summer that you just want to focus on what’s ahead because as a team and as individuals, if we don’t do that right there’s no point thinking about India.

“India is also a very tough place to play cricket for any international team.

“It just seems like a very far away place right now, and I’m not looking that far ahead.”

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