After a two year exile and subcontinent struggles, Usman Khawaja now holds the key for Australia

Despite world No.1 batter Marnus Labuschagne, generational lynchpin David Warner and all-time great in waiting Steve Smith rounding out a compelling top four, it is Khawaja’s wicket that arguably should be the most prized by opposition attacks over the next 12 months.

Khawaja’s name is among the first picked in spinning conditions since his iconic Dubai century in 2018 and rightly so. The Pakistan-born maestro has averaged 120.83 across his past eight innings in Asia, compared to 14.62 in his nine prior innings there.

From 2015 to 2017, when he was a regular fixture in the side, Khawaja only played in three of Australia’s nine Tests on the subcontinent.

Now having bested a strong Pakistan attack in their own backyard with tours of Sri Lanka and India to come in the next 12 months, Khawaja could not be more pivotal to Australia’s line-up.

“He’s going to be a big player in the next couple of tours and the home summer,” former coach Darren Lehmann says. “Who knows where that takes him? That’s a lot of cricket if he keeps performing at this unbelievable level for another 12 months.“

That level is an average in excess of 125 since a famed return to the Australian XI at the SCG to start the year. His career average has climbed from 40.66 to 47.24 in the 15 weeks since. If he can maintain the rage, it will be a legacy shifting period in his career.

Lehmann coached Khawaja for a year at Queensland and then again with Australia from 2013 to 2018. He says the major difference in the veteran’s game in Asia now is the approach he takes to it.

“The pleasing thing is the way he has adapted and the evolution of the way he plays spin over his career,” Lehmann says. “His play of spin is exceptional and certainly suited to the top of the order in Pakistan.

“He is prepared to take the game on now and reverse sweep and challenge the bowlers themselves and put them off their line and length. If they’re slightly off, he’ll put them away and make them hurt with a boundary. That’s one of the keys to putting pressure back on a spin bowler.

“The way he has gone about that has been exceptional.”

To Mike Hussey, player of the series when Australia last won a Test campaign in the subcontinent in 2011, Khawaja always had the game to succeed in Asia. The notion he was a poor player of spin came into being when Australia was thumped 3-0 in Sri Lanka in 2016. Khawaja was dropped two matches into that series with an average of 13.75 and had a line ruled through his name for 2017’s Border-Gavaskar Tour, much to Hussey’s frustration.

“I was really disappointed he had been written off after that one tour of Sri Lanka because I knew he was a good player of spin,” Hussey says. “He just needed time in those conditions to figure it out, and he’s a smart guy, it wouldn’t have taken him long to figure it out and it hasn’t taken him very long.

“The initial reaction after he had that poor tour of Sri Lanka, they basically ruled a line through him that he’s a poor player of spin, which was very inaccurate in my view, and it was also a little short-sighted.

“It’s more a case of identifying, ‘OK, this guy’s a good player’ – that’s pretty much undisputed – just give him time to develop and play in conditions around the world and you know you’ll reap the rewards of that.”

He wouldn’t be surprised if some of the success is for homecoming reasons either. Playing in his country of birth for the first time, Khawaja has averaged 165.33 and made two centuries and two nineties.

“You can also not underestimate the effect of playing in his country of birth,” Hussey says. “You don’t need any extra motivation playing for Australia but it’s almost like he’s playing for something a little bit bigger or a little bit more. It would have meant a lot for him to play a Test match in his country of birth, but then to get in there and score a heap of runs would fill him with immense pride I’m sure.”

By almost every measure Khawaja has been the outstanding Test batter of 2022 and already his impressive output will take some catching. His 751 runs so far are more than 300 in excess of the next highest run-scorer, Pakistan’s Abdullah Shafique (397 at 99.25).

Khawaja’s four Test tons are the most by anyone in 2022, and he would be the runaway leader if not for perishing in the 90s twice this series – Conway, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow have two tons each.

He is the lone batter to have faced more than 1000 balls this year (1457), with Pakistan’s Shafique (985) the only opponent likely to join him any time soon.

It’s a level of performance that has surprised even Queensland coach Wade Seccombe, who like many is baffled Khawaja was left out by selectors for more than two years.

“We always knew he was batting well and everyone up here in Queensland thought he probably shouldn’t have been out of the Australian team,” Seccombe says. “To think he wasn’t in the top six batsmen in the country was a little bit astounding in my mind.

“We probably didn’t expect the results to be as fruitful as what they are but we always knew that he should be playing at that level.”

Now that the southpaw is in the XI, Seccombe believes his best years in Test cricket could still be ahead of him, unconcerned by Khawaja turning 35 a few weeks before his SCG return.

“Cricketers are getting older and older,” Seccombe says.

“Historically we put a cap on where they can be and when they stop performing. But I don’t think that needs to be the case.

“When someone’s performing, who’s to say their best years aren’t ahead of them at this age?

“I still think so much of the game is gamesmanship and knowing how to play the conditions, play circumstances, and that comes with age.

“Providing physically he’s not declining, and I’d suggest that’s definitely not the case, there’s no reason why he can’t have fruitful summers to come.

“As long as a player is liking their time in the game they’ll still strive to be the best they can and I think he can play as long as he wants to basically.”

Indeed, 2022 is already on course to be Khawaja’s most productive year as a Test cricketer. He has only once managed more Test runs in a calendar year – 753 in 2016 – and he’s already bettered his 2015 haul of three centuries. He is the first Australian to score four Test centuries in a calendar year since Steve Smith and David Warner in 2017 and we’re only a quarter of a way through 2022.

Another Test ton this year would make him one of six players to have notched five centuries in a calendar year after turning 35. The five so far – Sachin Tendulkar (seven in 2010), Don Bradman (five in 1948), Brian Lara (five in 2005), Rahul Dravid (five in 2011) and Younis Khan (five in 2014) – would make for some company.

It’s not commonly associated with the country, but Australia has a proud history of batters thriving deep into their 30s. Only England (20) has had more batters notch 1000 runs after their 35th birthday, with Khawaja on course to be the 12th Australian to do so.

The first to achieve it for Australia was Don Bradman, the most recent Adam Voges. The only three to have reached 2000 were Steve Waugh (2554), Allan Border (2473) and Hussey (2323).

Khawaja has a ways to go before he is in the same rarefied air as that trio, but both Seccombe and Lehmann believe the current iteration of Khawaja is geared for long-term success, in no small part to where he is at in his life now.

“He’s a much more relaxed cricketer right now than what he was previously,” Seccombe says. “In my mind you can see it on the field in the way he’s going about his cricket now. He actually comes across as incredibly chilled out at the minute.

“I think previously he had a degree of a persona that he wanted to keep up, he never let the opposition in under his guard sort of thing. Right now, I see a player that is actually just treating every match as a bonus and is absolutely enjoying his time.”

“As you get older you get wise with more experience,” Lehmann adds. “He’s got a young daughter and another [baby] on the way so he’s quite comfortable and relaxed with his life and he’s his own man. So I think he’s calmer with his cricket and I think that has shown in his results.”

That’s something Khawaja has hinted at himself, seeing a silver lining in his two years out of the game.

“I felt really good today,” Khawaja said after making 97 in the opening Test against Pakistan. “I felt mentally in a really good spot coming into it, I guess.

“Probably because I‘ve been out of the system. I’ve been out of cricket Australia for two years. And now it’s not the be-all and end-all anymore.

“I’ve been in and out of the team so much. I’ve been dropped. It doesn’t matter. I just play the way I want to play. I just think of it as if I’m playing club cricket or Shield cricket back home. And that’s how I take it for Australia now.”