Khawaja comes full circle for Australia

Injury and infection have played into Australia’s hands, allowing the home side to grant a second Test to MCG hero Scott Boland and also complete a cricketing circle for Usman Khawaja.

Steve Smith, left, and teammate David Warner practice in the nets Picture: AFP

Injury and infection have played into Australia’s hands, allowing the home side to grant a second Test to MCG hero Scott Boland and also complete a cricketing circle for Usman Khawaja.

Captain Pat Cummins named one change to the successful outfit from the Boxing Day Test: Travis Head out and Usman Khawaja in.

Head contacted Covid-19 in Melbourne and is unavailable for the fourth Test. The South Australian captain is the series leading run scorer after kicking off his campaign with 152 in Brisbane.

In any other circumstances he would be sorely missed, but there was a small margin between Head and Usman Khawaja when it came to selection for the first match and few could begrudge the Queensland captain his recall.

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Khawaja is returning to country. He was raised in a migrant family in a small apartment close the SCG and be at the Randwick gates waiting for the moment at tea when the attendants threw open the gates to let the ticketless into the last session.

Khawaja made his debut at the SCG in the fifth Test of the 2010-11 Ashes series. That was, coincidentally, the last time Australia lost a home Test or a series to England.

Only Steve Smith and James Anderson are still standing from that match.

Khawaja made 171 in the corresponding match of the 2017-18 series – his only Ashes century but one of eight in a career in which he has averaged 40.66 across 44 Tests.

Injury and trigger happy selectors have seen the Pakistan-born Australian play only half of the games available since his debut.

And then there’s Boland. If James Pattinson had not retired and Jhye Richardson not pulled up sore — or if Josh Hazlewood had not strained his evangelical muscle — he would not have been seen at the Boxing Day Test and his home crowd not raised its arms in rapture as he tore England apart to take 6-7 from four overs spread across two delirious days.

Truth is, had Hazlewood been fitter here he would not have played.

Cummins, who took six wickets and was similarly awarded man of the match on making his Test debut, had some sympathy for Boland’s situation.

“I spent about five years sitting on one Test and I hated it when people talked about it because I felt I hadn’t proven anything,” Cummins said.

Australia's captain Pat Cummins uses hand sanitiser from a team official during a practice session at the Sydney Cricket Ground Picture: AFP

“It’s just great. He’s bowling as well as he ever has. It’s just great he can keep going from last week and have another crack here.

“Josh and Jhye are just not quite up to 100 per cent. We gave Joshy every chance we could but he felt like he couldn’t quite bowl at full tilt yesterday,” Cummins said.

“We still hope he will be alright for Hobart, we’ll just give him another week. So Scotty comes straight in.

“It‘s no secret that if Joshy Hazlewood was available then he was going to play.

“He’s been just a brilliant bowler for us for a long period of time.”

The SCG pitch is not expected to give as much assistance to the seamers as the Melbourne wicket did.

“We‘re not going to blast them out. There’s a little bit of grass on it but traditionally it’s hard work and goes five days,” Cummins said.

“You need that disciplined stump-to-stump bowler and that’s what Scotty brings to the table.

“It‘s a real luxury for us to have someone like Scotty … we feel really well placed at the moment with so many options.”

England have made one change, bringing Stuart Broad in for Ollie Robinson who has been good but appeared to be tiring as the series continued.

The visitors are struggling with the head coach, bowling coach, spin coach, strength coach and an emergency short-term coach all excluded from work because of the virus.

England resisted making changes to the batting line up despite being bowled out for 68 and not being able to reach Australia’s 267 despite two attempts in Melbourne.

Broad’s inclusion will not ease the frustrations of the veteran seamer who wrote in a Mail on Sunday column that he would not have got “a better chance to take wickets” than on the Brisbane and Melbourne pitches – where he was not included.

Acting England head coach Graham Thorpe admitted it had been an extraordinary tour for the team.

England's paceman Ben Stokes bowls during a training session at the Sydney Cricket Ground Picture: AFP

“There’s obviously been distractions off the field, preparations have been tough, in an ideal world you’d have matches coming into it, you’d play some state games coming into it, you’d be able to have a good look at your own team coming into the series, that hasn’t happened,” he said.

“We’ve had the distractions of Covid off the field which have been challenging to say the least, but at the end of the day we know we haven’t played good enough cricket when we’ve been out in the middle.

“We’ve got an ideal opportunity this week to put in a really good performance.”