Shane Watson Urges Cricket Australia to Give an Extended Run to Usman Khawaja

The ban for the trio David Warner, Steven Smith and Cameron Bancroft pushed Australia to rebuild the team again. During the course, the Cricket Australia (CA) selectors neglected the services of top-order batter Usman Khawaja in the recent past. Meanwhile, the former Australian all-rounder Shane Watson gives his opinion on the selection procedure.

Southpaw Khawaja has been exceptional in the recent Australia A tour to India. He showed his skills in the white-ball format and later, smashed a hard-fought century in the red-ball cricket when the conditions were purely in favour of the bowlers.

Selectors should give assurance and confidence to Usman Khawaja – Shane Watson

Watson feels Khawaja is one of the best batsmen available for Australia. He thought that the team needs a senior batsman in their ranks and added that Khawaja is the one to be in the team.

Further, Watson asked the selectors to give the confidence for the youngster and assure a long run to yield the results.

The all-rounder quoted that dropping a player just after a couple of bad games isn’t going to help for the team.

“I hope Khawaja gets a really good run. He’s one of our world-class batsmen, across all formats. He just needs to have the confidence instilled in him by the selectors and by the coaching staff, to let him play with the freedom he does when he’s at his best. We don’t have a lot of world-class batsmen at the moment around Australian cricket and he’s absolutely one,” Watson said.

“But when he’s not getting selected all the time, he’s worried about failing. Then you can see him going into his shell and that’s not when he’s at his best. When he is at his best he’s one of the best ones we’ve got. So they need to look after him. If they keep playing him for one or two Test matches and then dropping him, that’s not getting the best out of him,” he added while speaking to Cricket.com.au.

Australia to Play Pakistan in UAE; Cricket Australia backs players

After a long break, Australia set to return to the field. They will be locking horns against Pakistan in the upcoming October for a couple of Test matches. The three-match Twenty20 International series in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will follow it.