Australia opener Usman Khawaja has said that he didn’t get an opportunity to play in India as he was told that he is inefficient to play spin. In the fourth Test of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Khawaja impressed cricket fans, notching up his maiden Test century against India.
“Throughout the middle of my career I got told I couldn’t play spin and that’s why I never got an opportunity to play in India. “It’s just nice to go out there and tick off a hundred in India which was something if you asked me five years ago if you told me that I would think you were crazy,” said the Aussie opener.
“Maybe to some extent. But think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy in its own way. People start saying that then perception is reality. Anytime I got out to spin, people were like ‘you can’t play spin’. I probably started believing it myself.”
“I didn’t really get the support from the people around me at the time. I didn’t feel like the team really supported me. I didn’t feel like the coaching staff and selectors really supported me through that journey. It just made it so hard.”
“Whether I was or wasn’t, yes I’m a better player of spin now, no doubt about that, I have more shots, better defence. But I didn’t really get the opportunity to learn at that early stage. Fortunately enough, I am quite stubborn so went out of my own way to learn, then we had a couple of a tours here in India which helped a lot. Had to go back and figure it out all by myself,” concluded Khawaja.
