When Aussie cricket star Usman Khawaja was recalled to the Test side in 2022, many noticed there was a new aura to the left-hander.
His time in the wilderness – after being dropped in 2019 – had come to an end, and there was a relaxed figure who eventually nailed down a spot at the top of the order.
But the signs of Khawaja’s progression with the mental side of the game had come even before he was dropped.
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In 2018, his famous exchange with former coach Justin Langer aired on the Amazon docuseries The Test: A New Era for Australia’s Team where he told him “the boys are intimidated by you” after the 2018 Boxing Day Test. It was a cricketer who didn’t fear speaking up.
Then three years later came an insightful interview with Fox Cricket during a rain delay between Sydney Thunder and Melbourne Renegades in 2021, where he spoke of how he’d matured and learnt to enjoy the journey. It gave the ever passionate Australian public an understanding into how the mindset had changed of one of its most talented cricketers.
In 2022, the return came when Travis Head tested positive to COVID-19. He belted back-to-back hundreds at the SCG and hasn’t looked back since.
For him, the method was simple – and it was a new team environment, accepting of individuality, that led him to a rejuvenated Test career.
“It helps a lot, and to be honest when I came back into the Australian cricket team … I just didn’t give a shit, I was going to give everything I could to perform for Australia but at the same time I was going to do it my way this time,” he told Wide World of Sports.
“I know what I needed to do to perform at my best, I’ve done it for Queensland and I’m not going to change anything, so whether or not that team ethos was there or not for me, it wouldn’t have made a difference because all I cared about was making sure I could give 110 per cent for my team to win cricket games. And the only way I could do that was to be myself and do things how I did it so whether they were happy or not about how I went about it, wasn’t really a factor when I came back in.
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“And the thing is I’m comfortable with that, because I know what I’m doing is best for the team, I’m not doing it for myself, I’m not doing it for Uzzie, I was also going to do what’s best for the team and when I look at it that way I’m very comfortable with doing things a certain way and doing things that aren’t the norm, and people might not have done in the past.
“So for me, it definitely helped coming back into this team, don’t worry I think the fact I’m in this Australian cricket team right now has probably helped.
“I think if it was in the previous years I might have been burnt out by now but because I’m in this team right now, it’s been great, it’s kept my passion alive and I feel great at the moment but at the same time I was always going to do things my way.”
Khawaja’s mindset is somewhat symbolic of a new era in Australian cricket under Pat Cummins.
It’s a squad that emphasises owning its own space - and while that might not always bring a positive reaction from some quarters of the Australian public, and legendary former Test players, it doesn’t appear to be a mantra going away anytime soon.
“It’s all about being calm, ruthless,” Nathan Lyon said about Pat Cummins’ captaincy in the second series of The Test. That much was evident in the recent Ashes series when Jonny Bairstow was run out in controversial circumstances. “Ruthless, smart, switched on” is how former England captain Nasser Hussain described it on Sky Sports.
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But it hasn’t always been that way for Khawaja.
In 2013, his career was seemingly at a crossroads when James Pattinson, Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson and him were suspended before the third Test in India for failing to complete homework.
Seemingly, it’s his friendship with Watson that played a part in his re-emergence as a top line cricketer later in his career.
“I’m good mates with Watto, me and Watto used to talk about this stuff all the time when we played because we’d kind of been through similar journeys where we’d struggled, been in the Australian cricket team, a lot of stuff happened … and trying to get through the mental side where we were trying to figure out how to get peak performance,” he explained.
“A lot of it relates to the individual and how Watto would go about it and me, we’d have similar tendencies and traits but it wouldn’t be the same. So it’s a very individual thing, and the younger you start, you have to practice it and if you don’t practice it, you cannot get better at it so the younger you start and start practicing, putting things in place you think might work for you, the better off you’ll be when you’re older.
“That’s not just cricket and training and getting the best out of you, that’s other things like wellbeing also like making sure every time I’m happy off the field, I’m giving myself the best chance to perform on the field.
“Every time I haven’t, things have been struggling or I haven’t been happy off the field, it’s 100 per cent come into my cricket and I’ve seen that with most people I’ve played cricket with so the wellbeing part is extremely important.”
Following the homework saga, Khawaja made his return in the 2013 Ashes series, but was then unsighted until 2015, a year where he scored 504 runs at an average of 126 from five innings.
However, compared to now, there was still cracks in how people were accepted in the set up.
“I think honestly, the team camaraderie right now is as good as I’ve ever felt in my entire career just because everyone’s comfortable in being themselves, doing their own thing,” he said.
“When I came to Queensland, I came back into the Australian cricket team in 2015, I was myself, I was going about being myself and wearing flary clothes and doing all this but it still didn’t fit right into the team at the time. It was still getting slagged off, the Australian cricket team’s a certain way, we do things a certain way and I was like nope, I’m going to be me, I’m going to stop being what you guys want me to be and I think it’s come a long way now because a lot of the boys and girls now that come into the team, they’re comfortable with themselves because everyone just accepts it.
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“… I think there was a big push in the past where one in all in, whereas it’s still one in all in but there’s also an understanding where every individual’s different so what that individual needs to get the best out of themselves … you don’t make the Australian cricket team without caring and without being very professional without doing all the little things, so I think at the moment everyone is just respecting each other as adults as you do and just going about it.”
And while his teammates have been accepting of almost every individual quirk, there’s one training method Khawaja applies to himself that they can’t support.
“I’ve been using a Samsung for a long time, 11, 12 years now, I’ve always loved it … the boys all give me crap about it, because they laugh because I love the flip phone, the foldable phone,” he explained.
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“… I record myself when I’m batting because the flip phone, it doesn’t need anything to stand on … then I can get the whole footage from a training session of me batting for an hour … I’m always harping onto the boys, look at your stupid tripods you have to bring for your phones, I just flip it up.”
But despite the feedback from teammates, the 66-Test capped opener will keep doing it his way.
The man that celebrates hundreds with dabs and LeBron’s ‘The Silencer’ is the man Australia found at the top of the order when they needed it most.
And most importantly, he admits while he plays cricket for Australia, he’s “just like everyone else out there”.
An international cricketer, whose now got one eye on his metabolism and sticking to a sleep structure. But that doesn’t stop him from treating himself, every now and then.
“I still have a couple of desserts and they go straight to the hips,” he laughed.