Paul Kelly releases song inspired by Aussie batsman Usman Khawaja
Aussie batsman Usman Khawaja is inspiring more than just cricket fans, with one popular singer paying homage to the star.
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Beloved singer songwriter Paul Kelly is standing by the Australian Cricket team following a week of English bitterness, releasing a song in honour of opening batsman Usman Khawaja.
Mr Kelly was inspired to release the studio recording of “Khawaja” after he posted the song he’d recorded on his phone onto YouTube a year ago.
The 14 time ARIA award winner decided to pen the ode to the Aussie cricket player after watching the last day of Khawaja’s twin-ton game against England at the Sydney Cricket Ground in January 2022.
Now, with Khawaja once again back in the spotlight for being the top score runner in the 2023 Ashes so far, with a total of 300 runs across the first two tests in England, Mr Kelly decided it was time to pay further homage to the Aussie superstar.
“(Congratulations) to Uzzie for a series of important innings in the first two tests. The song plays on,” Mr Kelly posted on social media.
The song focuses on Khawaja’s commitment to the game, and his battle to the top.
“He loved his bat and ball and gloves, he loved his batting pads. He played a million weekend games in front of mums and dads,” Mr Kelly sings.
Other lyrics included how Khawaja “knew how to leave the ball and how to set the pace, he set himself to conquer speed and swing and spin and seam”.
Speaking to the Rolling Stone, Mr Kelly said he’d always loved the way Khawaja bats.
“There’s grace in his strokemaking and in the way he dealt with being in and out of the team, sometimes unfairly, over many years,” he said.
“I wanted the new recording to have the simple, unadorned style of that original phone version. No frills. Like the way Uzzie bats.”
The studio recording released on Tuesday has an accompanying Penguin Random House picture book based on the song, and is illustrated by Sri-Lankan/Australian illustrator and cartoonist Avinash Weerasekera.
The song, which includes lyrics like “triumph and disaster you treat them equally, Uzzie, you’ll go down in history”, comes as the batsman prepares for the third Ashes test on Thursday.
The Australian team will be looking to win the third test and claim the series for the first time on English soil since 2001.
The two rivals were at loggerheads on Monday after Australian wicket keeper Alex Carey stumped Bairstow moments after he walked out of his crease at the end of an over, before the ball had been declared dead.
The dismissal was pivotal in helping Australia win the match and putting the Green-caps up 2-0 in the series.
English Captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum declared post match the controversial decision was not in the “spirit of the game”, and many fans agreed including UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak agreed.
“The prime minister agrees with Ben Stokes who said he simply wouldn’t want to win a game in the manner that Australia did,” a spokesman for Mr Sunak said on Monday.
Members of the Marylebone Cricket Club, where the second test was played at Lords Cricket Ground, took their disgust over the stunning dismissal to heart, with some members hurling abuse at the Aussie cricket team in the Long Room.
Khawaja and teammate David Warner were both seen to be verbally abused by MCC members on videos posted to social media after the match.
“So I just talked to a few of them, a few of them [were] throwing out some pretty big allegations and I just called them up on it, and they kept going,” Khawaja told Nine Sports afterwards.
“And if they kept going I was like, ‘Well, it’s your membership here’, so I was just pointing them out. But it’s pretty disrespectful, to be honest. I just expect a lot better from the members.”
The MCC suspended three of its members and issued an apology to the Australian team.
Originally published as Paul Kelly releases song inspired by Aussie batsman Usman Khawaja
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