A triumph of style and substance: Usman’s winning ways

Usman Khawaja clipped the first ball he faced in Test cricket from England’s Chris Tremlett to leg for two, then pulled the second for an exquisitely timed four. This was at the SCG 12 years ago, at the end of an Ashes series in which Australia was annihilated by England.

A murmur ran around the ground. Khawaja’s batsmanship made for both an eye-catching first impression and a straw at which to cling.

Usman Khawaja celebrates his latest SCG century.Credit: Getty Images

That match finished in a flurry of manic strokeplay and a half-century made in vain for a young leg-spinner batting at No.7 who was ridiculed at the time for his style.

Much has been made about how much Steve Smith has changed since then. The evolution was there for all to see at the SCG on Thursday as he compiled his 30th Test century. It was a commanding innings.

Much more should be made about how little Khawaja has changed. That was also evident as he ran up his highest Test score on Thursday, an epic on a Tolstoyan scale, spanning all the cricket played so far in this Test and not at its epilogue yet. When forced from the field by rain again in the last session, Khawaja’s top button was still done up.

As a man, Khawaja has grown, broadened and matured. As a batsman, he knows and is in control of his own game. But, blessedly, he has not sacrificed any of his naturally languid elegance to the pragmatics of survival in Test cricket.

Usman Khawaja pulls for another four.Credit: Getty Images

In a way, that’s as it must be. A sportsman’s style is like their face or gait. It’s what they’re born with, immutable. All they can do on their own account is work away at the mechanics. But that doesn’t mean we should not cherish a stylist. In fact, we must.

Beauty matters. The way high art nourishes the human spirit is obvious even to a sportswriter. Style is, with hope for a contest and prospect of victory, why we watch sport. If all else failed, you could just watch batsmen like Greg Chappell and Mark Waugh and Damien Martyn and Ricky Ponting. If you lifted your eyes, you could feast them on Viv Richards and David Gower and Zaheer Abbas and Kumar Sangakkara and Sachin Tendulkar.

Usman Khawaja drives through covers.Credit: Getty Images

Conversely, Allan Border is, with Shane Warne, the most significant Australian cricketer of the last 50 years, but you would never have called him a stylist. Smith eventually tamed and trained all those moving parts to become the force he is today. The effect is compelling, but not especially pretty.

If Khawaja is defined by his charm, Smith is defined by the miraculous way his tangle of arms and legs turns into runs. His is a case of handsome is as handsome does in excelsis.

Khawaja inspired instant comparisons with Gower, a batsman who made even Australians sigh. If anything, the resemblance is even stronger now. His strokeplay is wristy and fluid. His arms, hands and bat are all of a piece (to the point that when rain stopped play, Khawaja tucked his bat under his jumper).

The effect is timeless. Nothing about it is forced. Even against the quickest bowlers, the ball seems to flow to and from his bat like water following a fall line. The fall line on a cricket field is where the fieldsmen aren’t; that was a feature of this innings.

England great David Gower.Credit: Fairfax

And like a waterfall, his innings kept tumbling along. His cover drive from Keshav Maharaj to go to 150 was emblematic; not even Gerard Henderson could have found fault with it.

Khawaja’s organic artistry gave rise to periodic criticism earlier in his career that he was lackadaisical, which annoyed him. It is the cross the effortless looking athlete must bear, that he is sometimes thought to be making no effort. Gower and Mark Waugh were.

To what extent Khawaja was a victim of his dreamy style only he can know, but the selectors were equivocal. There is not much point in making pretty 30s if it eventually lands you in a place where no one can see them. After 44 Tests, Khawaja was averaging 40 and a line seemingly was ruled through his name. Even he thought so.

His recall after two-and-a-half years for last season’s Sydney Test was providential, a serendipitous side-effect of COVID. He marked it with twin centuries against England and the runs did not abate until the start of this South African series, and now have been rebated anyway.

A slow Sydney pitch and South Africa’s lack of imagination allowed Khawaja to do his thing. Too much of the bowling, fast and slow, came to him on the back foot, from where he and his clever hands can direct it almost at will, and sometimes damp it down because he must.

It hasn’t and won’t always be this serene. Quicker or greener pitches will test him, because they test everyone. Dryer pitches already have. One enigmatic thing about Khawaja is that he has never made a complete go of the sub-continent. Next month, he gets one more chance.

Steve Smith in full flight.Credit: Getty Images

Khawaja and Smith are hand and glove. They’ve put on more than 2000 runs in partnership over the years, 200 more this day, propelling Australia again to a position from which only weather will deny them a clean sweep.

No one thinks Smith’s ways odd any more, and everyone can indulge themselves in the aesthetic pleasure of watching Khawaja. The murmur of assent in 2011 has become 2023’s full-throated roar.

If you happen to live in a non-sporting household, you might sometimes find yourself trying to instruct in what so charms about sport. You might even draw a comparison with dancing. If you can’t see a dancer in Khawaja, you’ll never see art in sport. Upon reaching 100 on Thursday, he performed a little jig, without a misstep, of course.

Great sport, like great art, is a feeling. Asked on air about the jig at a drinks break, he said: “I don’t need to practise. It’s all natural.”

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