Usman Khawaja

Khawaja started honing his cricketing skills from an early age at the Valley District Cricket Club in Brisbane and made it to the 2006 Under-19 World Cup. Two years later, he made his first-class debut for New South Wales.

Biography - About Usman Khawaja

In 2011, Usman Khawaja got a chance to play for the national team due to an injury to Ricky Ponting. In 2013, he made his ODI debut against Sri Lanka but was dropped after three matches. He returned strongly in the 2015-15 season and made his T20I debut against India. After this, he went on to become a regular in the Test side and have scored some vital knocks since then.

Usman Khawaja - Along the Years

Career

Domestic Career

Khawaja’s excellent performance in the Australian Under-19 Championship got him a chance to play for Australia in the 2006 U-19 Cricket World Cup. He made his first-class debut in 2008 for the New South Wales Blues. In 2011, he joined Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash League and has been an integral part of the team since then.

Also see - Steve Smith Biography

The same year, he signed a contract to play for Derbyshire in English domestic cricket. In 2014, he was signed by Lancashire for all formats. He also plays club cricket for Valley District Club in Brisbane. The following year, he was made the captain of the Queensland cricket team.

International Career

ODI Career

Khawaja made his ODI debut against Sri Lanka cricket team on 11 January 2013. His lacklustre performance in the initial matches saw him getting dropped from the team. Khawaja showed his class in the limited-overs tour of India in 2019 and also performed well against Pakistan in the following series. This helped him in securing a call for the 2019 Cricket World Cup, but he picked up a hamstring injury in one of the group-stage matches and was ruled out of the tournament.

Test Career

Khawaja made his Test debut in the fifth match of the 2010-11 Ashes series. With this, he became the first Muslim and the first Pakistani-born Australian player to play Test cricket for Australia. In 2013, he was suspended along with some other teammates following a breach of discipline. He returned to Test cricket in the 2013 Ashes series. In 2015, he scored his maiden Test century against New Zealand.

The same year, he became the first-ever batsman to score a century in an innings of a Day-Night Test match at home soil. In 2019, he was selected for the Ashes series in England. He failed to score even a half-century in the first three matches and was dropped for the fourth Ashes Test.

T20I career

Khawaja made his Twenty20 International debut for Australia against India on 31 January 2016. He was selected for the 2016 T20 Cricket World Cup and scored his first and only T20I half-century against Bangladesh. After that, he failed to impress in the shortest format of the game and hasn’t played in any T20I since September 2016.

IPL Career

Usman Khawaja played for now defunct Rising Pune Supergiant in 2016 and 2017 IPL season.

Family

Khawaja's father, Tariq Khawaja moved to Australia with his wife, Fozia Tariq when Usman Khawaja was five years old. He has two brothers, Nauman Khawaja and Arsalan Khawaja.