Crash Craddock: Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja are cricket’s Odd Couple no-one saw coming

If you’d wanted to wager on Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja being Australia’s opening pair four years ago, bookies would have taken your money and ran. But cricket’s new Odd Couple click where it matters, writes ROBERT CRADDOCK.

Steve Smith is so obsessed by batting he could talk about its many nuances all day and happily have them sprinkled on his cornflakes for breakfast.

Usman Khawaja loves batting too but likes getting away from cricket off the field.

Smith has more quirky batting movements than a hip hop dancer - Khawaja only moves when he has to and bats with the economical movement of a man saving every calorie for when it matters.

One style is complex. One is simple. One is left-handed. One is right. One was born in Sydney. The other in Islamabad.

They were raised on different sides of Sydney and made their first class debuts for NSW three weeks apart in 2008.

They both love aspects of the USA – Smith owns an apartment in New York while Khawaja can be often be seen watching American basketball games on his phone.

Steve Smith will be heading to the top of the order next week in Adelaide alongside Usman Khawaja. Picture: Saeed Khan / AFP.

Smith and Khawaja have some things in common but many contrasts as they prepare to become the Odd Couple opening combination no-one expected through the majority of their international careers.

If you had suggested a few years ago, when Khawaja was batting four for Queensland and never expecting to play another Test, that he and Smith would be Australian’s 2024 five-day openers any bookmaker would surely have offered 33-1 and been happy to take your money.

Who knows what will become of their post David Warner union but this much is certain. They click.

Over the past 11 years Smith and Khawaja have been Australia’s most bountiful batting partnership with 10 century stands, and 2470 runs at an average of 58. Each of these three statistics are chart-toppers for Australia.

Admittedly that was when Smith was batting down the order so this is a fresh challenge.

The one thing certain with opening partnerships is that nothing is certain when it comes to chemistry.

Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden were like brothers on and off the field and could often be spotted sharing dinner-for-two in Test week.

Usman Khawaja’s Test career looked dead in the water a few years ago, but now he’s firmly entrenched at the top of the Australian order. Picture: Saeed Khan / AFP.

Geoff Marsh and David Boon would routinely share a frosty ale and Marsh became godfather to one of Boon’s children.

But one of Australia’s greatest opening unions – Bill Lawry and Bob Simpson – spent more time together in the middle than they did off the field.

“We were just completely different,’’ Simpson said. “Bill loved his pigeon racing where I would play golf which didn’t interest him at all. Somehow we clicked.’’

England’s Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart were also very much a “business only’’ outfit. Atherton once said he never visited Stewart’s place for dinner when the Test scene passed through his home region of Surrey, not for any particular reason other than they rarely had dinner together.

With a combined age of 71 (Khawaja 37, Smith 34) they are one of Australia’s oldest opening combinations of recent times but nowhere near the all time record held by English greats Jack Hobbs (47) and Frank Woolley (43) when they had a combined age of 90 opening against Australia in 1930.

When it comes to opening the batting there are no rules.

Originally published as Crash Craddock: Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja are cricket’s Odd Couple no-one saw coming