ICC World Cup 2019: Australia's Recent Form is No Fluke, Says Usman Khawaja

Australia Cricket Team will enter the upcoming ICC World Cup 2019 in England and Wales with sheer confidence with an 11-match winning streak. Besides, the inclusion of former skipper Steven Smith and David Warner have also boosted their chances of the title defence. As they complete their preparation with a thorough win over Sri Lanka, Usman Khawaja stated their recent form is not a fluke.

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Series loss to India was the turning point: Khawaja

Meanwhile, Australia had a dismal time in 2018, winning only a handful of games. However, they kept up the hardwork going and finally turned their fortunes earlier this year when they visited India for a five-match ODI series just before the IPL. The Aussies were 2-0 down in the series before making a stunning comeback to win it 3-2. Then they continued their winning run to rout Pakistan 5-0 at the UAE. And now, they have won all their practice games leading to the World Cup and will hope to keep the good work going in the showpiece event.

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Usman Khawaja, who has been an essential stakeholder in this turnaround, admitted that there is a lot of hardwork behind this and their recent form is not a fluke. The southpaw said that loss against India at home was the turning point but revealed that they always had the confidence that they can win.

“Behind the scenes, we’ve put in a lot of hard work, you need that to be able to compete at this level. Everyone has put in a lot of effort. We had India over in our place for a series and while we lost, that was a big turning point for us,” Khawaja said to ICC Media. “Then we went to India, lost the first two matches and went on to win the series. We always had the confidence we could do that,” he added.

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Meanwhile, Usman Khawaja suffered two injuries in the three practice games; thankfully, none of them was serious enough. Yesterday, he suffered a muscle strain while fielding against Sri Lanka; however, he returned to play a match-winning knock to help his side cruise to victory. In conclusion, the veteran batsman said that he is not concentrating on his batting position and is happy to contribute to the team’s success batting anywhere in the order.

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Australia play their World Cup opener against Afghanistan on June 1 at Bristol County Ground.