Australian 87 Test veteran Usman Khawaja has finally announced his retirement from international cricket at the age of 39. His farewell match will be the final Ashes match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the same venue where he made his debut back in January 2011.
For a long time, the retirement speculation had surrounded Usman Khawaja, and now he has finally given up on international cricket. The Australian great goes down with 88 Tests in his career and amassed 6206 runs, including 16 centuries.
“I’ve been thinking about it, not wholly, but for a while,” Khawaja said with his family watching in the SCG press room. “Moving into this series, I kind of had an inkling in my head that this would be the last series. He finally revealed that he had considered retirement over multiple phases and ultimately was happy to retire on his own terms.
Three major controversies of Usman Khawaja’s career:
3. “Homework gate controversy” led to Khawaja’s Test ban in 2013
The ‘homework gate’ controversy might look to be a controversial call made by the Australian management during an out-of-favour tour to India, where the Australian batters struggled to score runs, but actually, it was the clear depiction of the strict discipline within the Australian dressing room.
When the then coach Mickey Arthur had asked the players to submit a three-point write-up on what they could improve individually and as a team, four cricketers, namely, Shane Watson, Usman Khawaja, Mitchell Johnson and James Pattinson, failed to submit it and were suspended for indiscipline.
Usman Khawaja, alongside his 3 other teammates, had faced a one-match ban during the series.
2. “Freedom is a human right,” and “All lives are equal.” – Usman Khawaja’s challenging political controversy
Usman Khawaja was once caught up in a political controversy when he displayed political slogans on his shoes and his bat, which read “Freedom is a human right,” and “All lives are equal.”
Khawaja had stated that all these are humanitarian and non-political expressions of solidarity for the innocent lives lost in the Israel-Hamas war. However, the ICC prohibited him from displaying such messages during matches.
However, Khawaja did not give up on this and instead wore a black armband during their first Test against Pakistan to protest against the ICC rules and also challenge the ban on such accessories.
1. Usman Khawaja’s ugly tiff with legend Shane Warne
The biggest of the controversies from Khawaja’s career came in 2018 during his low stint in international cricket and his feud with Australian legend Shane Warne. The lack of energy was one of the biggest claims made, and Warne had claimed, “Sometimes you just want to shake him and get him to show a bit more.”
Shane Warne was always against the selection of Khawaja in the Australian team, as he felt that he did just enough to be worth selection but never made his presence felt in the top order. He was then asked to take a careful look at his run tally in domestic cricket across all formats by the Australian batter himself.
Khawaja had also defended his body language against Warne and had claimed, “I’m a pretty cool bloke. You either get it, or you don’t.” Khawaja scored twin hundreds in 2022, and with a splendid year, he won the inaugural Shane Warne Men’s Test Player of the Year award in 2023, after the death of the legendary spinner.