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📻 IMPORTANT AUCKLAND UPDATE 📻
Versatile, resilient, elegant: How we should remember retiring Khawaja
SEN • January 2nd, 2026 5:06 pm
After 15 years of international cricket and 87 Tests, there are enough descriptors out there to encapsulate retiring Australian batter Usman Khawaja.
Elegant, classy and mercurial are some that come to mind, but SEN Cricket’s Adam White thinks these stand above the rest. Versatile, resilient and selfless.
Khawaja’s versatility is obvious to see. Starting as a No. 3, Khawaja returned to the side as a No. 5 before shifting to opening the batting later in his career, where he’d be named ICC Test Cricketer of the Year in 2023.
He has even found himself back at No. 5 to finish his career.
As for resilience, that’s obvious as well, with the Queensland bat dropped seven times throughout his career before fighting his way back into the Test XI.
“I think Usman should be remembered as a versatile cricketer who played many different positions, many different roles for his country, and did it extremely well,” White said on SEN Captain’s Run.
“To have 16 Test centuries and an average of 43, where primarily he played his cricket at the top of the order for Australia. That sets up very nicely with a number of Australia’s top order players in the last 50 years.
“I think he's a resilient cricketer. Something that he absolutely craved (was continuity), as he said again today. But he came back so many times after being dropped, and probably the most recent version of Usman Khawaja over the last four years was arguably his best.
“I think it says a lot about his character, the way that he was able to come back so many times.”
The other descriptor for Khawaja, - selfless - is one which White thinks some will see differently.
But for the SEN Cricket commentator, he believes Khawaja put his country and team above his own interests as he played on beyond last summer at the wishes of those in charge, like Andrew McDonald.
“I know that this is a bit of a polarising thing, but I actually think he was a selfless player,” White said.
“He could have stopped, and he nearly did two years ago, but he stayed on because it was others who wanted him to stay on more than he wanted to stay on himself.
“He wanted to be there, yes, absolutely, playing cricket for his country, but he was happy to leave. He would've been content if he left a couple of years ago.
“But it was almost put to him that it was in the best interests of the team that he continued, rather than finish a couple of years ago.
“He did put the team and his country, potentially, before his own interests.”
Khawaja’s 88th and final Test comes when Australia host England at the SCG, beginning on January 4th. Listen to every ball LIVE on SEN - your home of cricket.
