Brandishing Usman Khawaja’s Test future is now out of his own hands | Geoff Lemon

AAs far as surprises go, a 38.95 year old with a back problem still having a back problem isn’t on the same level as the ending of The Sixth Sense. The only twists in this story are the ones that Usman Khawaja cannot do at the moment. With the second Ashes Test in Brisbane looming on December 4, the erratic nature of such injuries made it strange that the batsman was included in the Australian squad in the first place on November 30, and less strange that he was ruled out again on December 2. But here we are, still caught up in the dance that the Australian selectors have performed over their unwillingness to part with Khawaja at the top of the order.

From here, other results will decide whether we have reached the end of what, like so many others, has been a very good Test career that declined irreversibly towards the end. For two years, Khawaja has struggled with the level of fast bowling that Test openers have to combat, looking increasingly out of place. Throughout that period, thanks to the confidence the selectors have shown in him, the solution has remained in his own hands. One big score, one wake of the kind he once routinely made, and he could be confident that his later version could deliver the benefit of experience without sacrificing reflexes.

That didn’t happen, and now his fate must be decided by someone else. Normally, the injured player only has the conundrum of looking at his one replacement: he wants that replacement to do well enough so that the team isn’t disadvantaged, but not well enough to keep the spot. This time, however, Khawaja’s future lies in two sets of different hands.

Of course, Australian team management have not confirmed that Travis Head will open the batting in Queensland: they prefer a situationship atmosphere and never want to commit to describing what lies ahead. But without additions to the squad, the answer must lie within. Most likely, this means Head reprises his star turn at the top of the rankings, with Beau Webster or Josh Inglis in the middle, perhaps at No. 6, while Cameron Green moves up to No. 5.

That means both players will have to do well to make Khawaja’s spot disappear for the rest of the series. Head certainly won’t attack as aggressively as he did during his Perth century, but his approach could still be a boom and bust. If it goes bankrupt, Khawaja will have to give a business back. If the middle-order replacement doesn’t score, there’s a case for moving Head back down. But if both go well, making it Head Up Top twice in a row, Khawaja will struggle to build an argument to oust him.

At this time, Australia says Khawaja is still in the plan and will remain with the team in Brisbane for his treatment. If he can storm back to have a decisive impact in the final three Tests, it would be a wonderful story to cap off a career that has already given us several. But there’s a point where Khawaja becomes Homer Simpson’s giant sandwich, and the team that clings on for too long faces a health risk.

Currently no one else knows what they are doing because the injured opener is the variable. Head doesn’t know if he has that job for a season or a week. Webster or Inglis, whoever it is, won’t know whether they come in with a license to attack the series over four Tests, or whether they need a huge score from one Test. The argument for keeping Khawaja since David Warner’s retirement has been stability, but right now he is the main destabilizing influence on this team.

This is further underlined by his recent strike at Perth Stadium: after facing all six balls after being dropped to number 4 with his back problem, he felt qualified to label the pitch as “a piece of shit”, despite the match referee giving it the highest rating for quality. That kind of response only comes across as rude because I haven’t made any runs on the opening day in Perth for the past two seasons, facing fine spells of fast bowling on both occasions.

A player’s job is to focus on what he needs to do to meet the challenge in front of him, not to complain about the challenge that has just passed. Being distracted like that, voicing grievances, being seen as making excuses, all seems like waving. Waving is what happens in the final moments, anything that offers something to hold on to, a symptom when despair meets denial. The Sixth Sense is about a man who walks around without knowing that he is already dead. He may not be the only one.