Chances to make Test centuries don’t come around very often. Excellent careers might include five or 10. Each innings starts from nothing and gradually climbs across hours, with every rung gained being the one that might break. However placid the pitch, however rich the vein of form, it only takes one good ball, one mistake, one lapse of concentration, piece of bad luck, umpiring error, fine piece of fielding, and the count collapses back to zero.
When Usman Khawaja gloved a catch at Pindi Stadium for 97 last week, the odds were against him getting another chance at a century in Pakistan. Best case the tour had two matches to come, and at the age of 35 he had no prospects of visiting again. If he had achieved the feat there would have been a simple and satisfying circularity to his story: born in Islamabad, where the first Test was played; growing up in Sydney, and became an Australian national cricketer; then at last a trip back to Pakistan to raise the bat in triumph in front of a crowd that would simultaneously be home and away. The joining of tides, the closing of the circle.
This chapter of Khawaja’s story would also have been shot through with brighter and more complicated strands of meaning. A player from one of the migrant communities that make up so much of Australian local cricket but so little of the overwhelmingly white professional scene. In a Test team whose players of colour across 145 years barely tally a handful. A leading member of the first Australian side to visit Pakistan in since the last millennium, finally coming back.
Of course a century is arbitrary, and it made no cricketing difference whether Khawaja got 97 or 100 in a yawning draw on a somnolent track. It made a difference though that he didn’t get that moment with the crowd, that moment of confused adulation from Pakistanis as one of their own who was also an Australian. The homecoming was not marked to its fullest possible extent.
So it felt more special when the opportunity rolled around again, in his very next hit. The second Test in Karachi, an even more fitting locale as the city where he spent his early childhood and where his extended family still lives. This time Khawaja was more cavalier to start, going after the bowling, hitting sixes and playing pull shots. But as the ball aged he reined himself in. He reached 97 again. And instead of looking for a boundary, he waited for a simple single to reach 98. Then 99, and finally that hundred, with a nondescript nudge square. The response from the stands was worth the wait.
Enjoying Khawaja’s recent success has led some observers to overcorrect, believing now that he should have had been opening the batting for years. It’s worth remembering that until recently, despite being captain of Queensland, he batted elsewhere. When he was squeezed out of the team in England in 2019, it was reasonable to interpret that as a rough deal, but Steve Smith had to come back from injury and Marnus Labuschagne had excelled as Smith’s replacement.
Both had scored in bulk that series. Khawaja had not. A new opener had just been installed who was untested. Khawaja was very tested. He had enjoyed nearly 10 years of opportunities in the team for a couple of major highs and a lot of stuff in the lower middle. He still has a dismal overseas record everywhere unless it’s against Pakistan or his two Tests in New Zealand. He was dropped in 2019 because he had made himself replaceable. He eventually made his way back in 2022 on the basis of consistent quality.
That’s what he has offered since his return against England in Sydney: three hundreds, and very nearly four, in the space of four Tests. The twin tons at the SCG followed by this one. Perhaps this is a late-career awakening of his ability that will take him deep into his 30s. Perhaps it’s a flash in the pan that will be darkened very soon. It doesn’t really matter. For now, a career that had promised and shimmered and underwhelmed has now done something stronger, things that can’t be undone. The moment in Karachi was magic, but it was concrete at the same time.
