Galle: “I don’t care what happens, just make sure you’re on the Sri Lanka tour, I want you on the Sri Lanka tour.”
Usman Khawaja has revealed how Australian coach Andrew McDonald assured him with those words last year that a lean 2024 would not preclude him from another chance to excel on the subcontinent.
Following a difficult home summer where Jasprit Bumrah had his number, 38-year-old Khawaja snapped back into the sort of touch that has served him so well in south Asian conditions since 2018, to the point that he was able to become the first Australian since Allan Border to notch hundreds in Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka.
That he did so in Galle – scene of a horror Test match in 2016 where he was dismissed twice in one day – was another moment for Khawaja to savour in what has been a series of golden late career moments.
“My wife Rachael was here with me, I remember we went for dinner that night down the beach,” Khawaja said of the Test here eight years ago. “It just feels like we’ve had so many of those times, so many great times but then so many tough times in this game.
“No one sees that. You take the good stuff when you get it, you have one of the greatest players, Steve Smith, as great as he is, he’s only done it 35 times. You have to enjoy the good times and respect that tough times are always going to be there. But nothing lasts forever.”
