Khawaja focuses on summer after dire tour
Australia will be touring India next year, but Usman Khawaja doesn’t want to think that far ahead after a dismal tour to Asia, and would rather focus on series at home this Australian summer.
Sri Lanka was not a welcome place for Khawaja, as he top scored with 36 across two Tests, two ODIs and two T20s. Now he has to get his mind right to face Pakistan and South Africa, and would rather not contemplate Asia for a while.
But to play in the home series he has to be picked, and he hopes domestic cricket in the next few weeks will build a case for his inclusion after being dropped in Sri Lanka.
Khawaja said: “I will look at that but…I want to concentrate on this summer in Australia ahead.
“There is no point looking at India if I don’t score any runs in the summer here and if we don’t win games against the current opposition we’ve got coming. If that bridge comes or when it comes, I’ll look at it.
“I’ve already sort of assessed Sri Lanka, I’m sure all of us have. We have as a group. But us moving forward we need to win at home first. We’re playing against two quality attacks.
“They’re very good teams so first and foremost we need to do well there and once we can tick those boxes off we can start looking at India again. I’m sure everyone will have a think about it over the summer.”
Khawaja was far from the only batsman to struggle in Sri Lanka though, as the Aussies lost the series three nil, and the batsman feels they did not prepare for the conditions well enough.
He added: “As a whole, we probably just didn’t adapt to the wickets quickly enough.
“I honestly think we should have won that first Test match. If it wasn’t for the little fella, the youngster Mendis playing an absolutely unbelievable innings and getting that hundred … that sort of took the game away from us.
“I firmly believe that if we won that first Test everything would have been a lot different. We obviously didn’t, then Galle happened, and Sri Lanka just outplayed us.”
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