How Khawaja swept away spin woes to prosper in Asia

Usman Khawaja could be forgiven a discernible wince when he walks to the wicket in the opening Test against Sri Lanka at Galle from tomorrow.

As scenic and serene as the coastal low-rise cricket 'stadium' surely is, it was also the scene of one of Khawaja's career low points when, twice within a day's play in 2016, he was bowled by rival off-spinner Dilruwan Perera.

The second of those came without Khawaja offering a shot, to the first delivery he faced as Australia plummeted to defeat.

It led to his omission from the starting XI for the third and final Test of that forgettable campaign which Sri Lanka swept 3-0 – not the first time he had been dropped in his five-year career to that point, but certainly the most painful.

The hurt was shared by his then-girlfriend (now wife) Rachel who was at the ground in Galle, and compounded by a growing distaste Pakistan-born Khawaja had developed for batting on spin-friendly pitches, in subcontinental conditions.

But the sting of losing his place also acted as the barb the left-hander needed to find a method of not just countering the spinning ball in Asia but settling on a method whereby he could score in order to put pressure back on his tormentors.

The breakthrough moment arrived soon after, in the five-game ODI series that followed the failed Test campaign.

Khawaja was intrigued to see his Australia teammate George Bailey – now chair of the national selection panel – employ the then-novelty reverse sweep stroke on his way to becoming the leading run scorer across the ODIs.

Khawaja might have scored 0 and 6 from his two hits during those 50-over games in Sri Lanka, but it proved pivotal in his evolution to becoming one of the most accomplished batters on subcontinent surfaces over the past six years.

"I remember watching George Bailey hit reverse sweeps during that ODI series, and be really effective," Khawaja told cricket.com.au this week.

"That's the first time in my life I started practicing reverse sweeps.

"It was in Kandy, before the one-day match we had there and I looked like an absolute fool (but) that was the first time I was like 'well, I've got to do something slightly different'.

"I think I was pretty good on wickets where they were 'small spinners', but the big spinners I was like, 'I don't really have any options here'.

"I didn't have the confidence to come down the wicket, to sweep, to reverse.

"I needed to figure out a way to gain confidence so that's when I first started trying to reverse sweep."

Initially, the method was anything but fruitful.

Recalled to Australia's Test line-up for the subsequent home summer, he then went to Bangladesh for the two-match tour of 2017 and after twin failures – 1 (run out) and 1 – in the team's historic 20-run loss in the opener at Dhaka he was duly dumped again.

But Khawaja devoted much of the next year to honing his craft in spinning conditions at home.

Batting on purpose-made practice pitches that sported large areas of rough, he worked on using his feet against slow bowlers, on the reverse sweep he had added to his arsenal, on paddle sweeps he could use to rotate strike and manipulate the field.

When he went to India with an Australia A outfit captained by Mitchell Marsh in 2018, he was the team's leading run scorer in the quadrangular limited-overs series and posted 127 as opener in the first unofficial 'Test' against India A at Bengaluru.

Despite misgivings some continued to hold about his suitability against spin, he was then named for the two-Test series against Pakistan in the UAE later that year which marked Justin Langer's first outing as coach of a vastly reshaped Australia team.

The first of those games at Dubai marked the rebirth of Khawaja as a Test player in conditions he had previously come to loathe as he scored 85 then a famous 141 across almost nine hours at the crease as Australia hung on for a draw after facing near-certain defeat.

Rachel Khawaja – the couple had married in April that year – was again in the crowd for that occasion and was again visibly moved, though this time shedding tears of joy having witnessed at close range the effort her husband had exerted to complete such a turnaround.

"There was two things," Khawaja said when asked to identity the key technical or mindset changes that enabled the transformation noting he was a more accomplished all-round player by 2018.

"There was all the hard work I'd done up to that point.

"But I think the second thing that really helped was JL, Justin Langer. He actually gave me the confidence.

"He said 'Uzzie, I've seen you play spin, I've seen you in domestic cricket, you smack spin all the time – I've seen your record, I've seen your stats, so I know you can do it'.

"It was like 'you're gonna open in Dubai, and I back you one hundred per cent'.

"And I think the confidence that, for the first time, the coach actually said 'look, I'm backing you' and genuinely meant it … it was the first time I actually got that.

"I always felt I was playing for my spot every time on the subcontinent. It was like 'these guys don't think I'm good enough'.

"I found it hard to play in that kind of environment, and JL for the first time was like 'no'.

"Then I survived ten hours of batting, playing reverse sweeps and sweeps so that was a big shift and change.

"That was really emotional hundred for me, and I remember Rachel sitting up in the stands, bawling her eyes out because she knew how emotional it was because of how much I'd struggled in the subcontinent and how much I hated batting in the subcontinent."

Since that breakthrough effort more than six years ago, only former England skipper Joe Root has scored more runs as a visiting Test batter on Asian pitches across India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the UAE.

And Root's return of 1820 runs from 20 matches came at an average of 49.18 with six centuries.

Over the same period, Khawaja has scored 1195 runs from nine fewer Tests and at a significantly superior average of 74.69 with four scores in excess of 100.

The philosophy that complements the upskilling of his batting, as well as the uplifting of his sense of belonging, is one Khawaja applies to Test matches not only in Asia, but at home and other locales where he earned acclaim as ICC Test Player of the Year for 2023.

Regardless of the surface on which he's batting, his principal focus is finding a way to score runs and thereby place bowlers under the sort of pressure he felt when heading to the crease in the days when he dreaded spinning conditions.

His other mantra is not to try and eradicate a particular mode of dismissal, which is similar in outlook to the 'park your ego' slogan Australia's stand-in Test skipper Steve Smith and others have adopted for the current two-Test campaign in Sri Lanka.

"I understand what he (Smith) is trying to say because getting beaten on the outside of your bat, or the ball spinning past you can hurt your ego as a batsman a little bit," Khawaja said.

"But if you actually try cover that ball, then you're leaving yourself exposed to other balls.

"The hardest thing I found when I was younger was I would get out one way, then try to cover that and it would just be a big cycle.

"You'd get out caught behind, you try to cover the caught behind. You get your front pad blown off, you try to prevent that.

"You're just chasing the game the whole time. But as you get older you realise there's going to be certain ways you'll get out.

"You can't cover everything in cricket."

The other lesson Khawaja is passionate about peddling is to help the next generation of Australian Test batters find a way of handling the challenges posed by playing in Asia without having to replicate his experiences.

He laughs at the seeming lack of self-consciousness players such as his 19-year-old Test opening partner Sam Konstas display when unfurling the sort of reverse sweeps and ramp shots Khawaja would never have dreamed of executing in his formative years.

But he's also keen to share wisdom gleaned from at-times bitter experience without looking to lecture his up-and-coming teammates as they forge their own paths, and he took the opportunity to do so at the recent pre-Test training camp in Dubai.

"I don't want Sam Konstas, or even someone like Beau (Webster) who probably hasn't played a lot on the subcontinent in red-ball cricket, or Nath (Nathan McSweeney), I don't want them to go through the same thing I did," Khawaja told cricket.com.au.

"I don't want them to take five, six years to figure out what I figured out, I want them to figure it out at a younger age so they're better equipped to handle that.

"We had a great three or four sessions in Dubai where I actually got to chat to some of the guys about batting, and what I like to do against left, right (hand bowlers).

"Not big things, I'm not a guy that likes to bombard people. Just little things, little nuggets that I learned throughout my time, things that have helped me then I just pass them on.

"If they want to take it, they take it and try it. And if they don't, they don't.

"But I think that's how the game evolves."

Qantas Tour of Sri Lanka

First Test: January 29-February 2, Galle (3.30pm AEDT)

Second Test: February 6-10, Galle (3.30pm AEDT)

Sri Lanka Test squad: Dhananjaya de Silva (c), Dimuth Karunaratne, Pathum Nissanka (subject to fitness), Oshada Fernando, Lahiru Udara, Dinesh Chandimal, Angelo Mathews, Kamindu Mendis, Kusal Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Sonal Dinusha, Prabath Jayasuriya, Jeffrey Vandersay, Nishan Peiris, Asitha Fernando, Vishwa Fernando, Lahiru Kumara, Milan Rathnayake

Australia Test squad: Steve Smith (c), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Travis Head (vc), Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Matt Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Nathan McSweeney, Todd Murphy, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

First ODI: February 12, Colombo (3.30pm AEDT)

Second ODI: February 14, Colombo (3.30pm AEDT)