Michael Clarke Not Satisfied With Denying Usman Khawaja A Central Contract

On Thursday (April 30th), Cricket Australia announced the list of centrally contracted players for the upcoming year. The inevitable ones, who received the contracts were Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, David Warner, Ashton Agar, Tim Paine and so on. With the upcoming T20 World Cup in sight, there existed a number of short-format specialists. However, the exclusion of specialist batsman Usman Khawaja raised eyebrows and former captain Michael Clarke was amongst the notable ones to do so.

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The Pakistani-born batsman made it to Australia’s 2019 World Cup squad on the back of some heavy run-scoring. The southpaw missed out on playing the semi-final against England due to injury, which Justin Langer viewed as crucial. However, he returned for the Ashes series later. Unfortunately, Khawaja could manage only 40 runs from three Tests and the Ashes rubber’s third game was the last he played for Australia.

Clarke was baffled at the news of the flamboyant left-hander not receiving a contract. The World Cup-winning skipper found it hard to believe that with the experience and talent the veteran has, Cricket Australia denied him a spot amongst the 20 contracted cricketers. Selector Trevor Hohns also claimed that Khawaja’s exclusion was one of the toughest decisions. All-rounder Marcus Stoinis was one more prominent figure, who failed to make the cut.

“I find it very hard to believe that someone with the talent and the runs behind him over 10 years isn’t in Australia’s top 20 players.” the 115-Test veteran said as quoted by Times of India.

Michael Clarke believes it might not be anything personal on Langer’s part:

At the same time, Michael Clarke remains confident that there isn’t anything personal on the coach’s part to refuse him a contract. The reason why the angle is being looked at since Khawaja has had his clashes with Langer in the Australian documentary series. The duo had some differences of opinions with regards to the approach in batting while Australia were playing Pakistan in the UAE.

“I would like to think it’s nothing personal. I don’t think JL is like that.” Michael Clarke stated.

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