Australia cricket Usman Khawaja is set to retire from international cricket after the left-handed batter announced his decision at a media conference in Sydney on Friday. The 5th and final Ashes Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) will be Khawaja's last Test match.
But there's a very interesting story behind his rise to the top. A tale which inspired Khawaja to achieve his dream of becoming a Test cricketer.
"I lived just up the road from the SCG, on Cook Road to be exact, and I'll never forget when I was younger I saw a Michael Slater drive in his red Ferrari. I couldn't believe my luck, I just saw a test cricketer, and as a boy whose parents were barely scraping through and trying to provide for their kids in a little two bedroom apartment, I thought one day I'm going to be a test-cricketer and one day I can drive whatever I want. Never did I think that God would grant me such a wish. I'm here to announce today that I'll be retiring from all international cricket after the SCG test match," he said in the press conference.
What makes it remarkable is that the 39-year-old had also made his debut at this very ground back in 2011, when he became the first Muslim cricketer to represent Australia.
For a boy whose parents left Pakistan and brought him to Australia, the journey to becoming a Test cricketer was never easy. And now, he has one final wish - a wish that, in truth, he has always carried with him.
"I gave my long spiel earlier about how I felt I was treated at the start when I did my back. It wasn't specifically the media itself. Now the social media is so big, everyone had their say and everyone was sort of piling in. But once the racial stereotypes of me being lazy, things I've done with my whole life, lazy, you know, Pakistani, West Indian players, color players, we're selfish, we only care about ourselves, we do things, we don't care about the team. We don't train hard enough, all these things came back and made me realize that we're not still quite there," he stated.
"So the journey is definitely harder. What I'm hoping is the journey for the next Usman Khawaja is a little bit easier. The next Usman Khawaja is a lot easier and then we get to a line where the journey for how many generations, that that Usman is the same as John Smith. If we can get to that point, that is what I've always been trying to champion the whole time and that's what I have been trying to achieve his cricket stride behind the scenes. That's always going to be a challenge. And I mean, that's, ideally that's where we like to be, but we're not quite there yet, but we were a lot better than we were 15 years ago." Khawaja added.
Khawaja has scored over 6000 runs in Tests, including 16 centuries.
