A visibly emotional Usman Khawaja has ended the swirl of speculation surrounding his playing future by announcing he will be retiring after the fifth Ashes Test at the SCG.
Khawaja fronted the media on Friday morning, flanked by his family, to say that he would be drawing the curtain on his international career at his former home ground in what will be his 88th Test for Australia.
He had earlier told his teammates that the time was right for him to draw stumps on his time in the Test team.
“I teared up straight away. I never thought I’d be the guy who cried when he retired but I cried straight away,” he said when recalling how he told his teammates.
Usman Khawaja. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images for Cricket Australia)
“Even though I knew it was coming, it’s still not easy to say out loud.”
The recently turned 39-year-old has amassed 6206 runs at 43.89 since his debut at the tail end of the 2010-11 Ashes series.
He has scored 16 centuries and 28 half-centuries along the way and was a member of the 2023 side which won the World Test Championship.
Khawaja also represented Australia in 40 ODIs, notching two centuries in his 1554 runs at 42 as well as nine T20s where he scored 241 runs at 26.77 with an impressive strike rate of 132.41.
He read a prepared statement, thanking his wife and daughters, extended family and teammates.
“This game humbles you, tests your patience, resilience and gratitude. I hope I’ve inspired many children along the way, particularly those who feel they are different,” he said.
“Seeing is believing. You’ve just got to keep trying.
“Grateful for the people, the journey, the lessons.”
He said that he felt like he was being “attacked” by the media and former players over the past two years about retiring.
“I felt people were coming at me and saying I was selfish for staying on,” he said.
“It was never totally about me.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while.
“I’m glad I get to leave on my own terms with a little bit of dignity.”
Usman Khawaja celebrates after hitting a century at Sydney Cricket Ground in 2022. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
Khawaja took the opportunity to hit back at mounting media and public criticism of him, which peaked at the start of the summer when his participation in the first Ashes Test was hampered by back spasms that eventually ruled him out of the second Test.
The veteran was widely denounced for playing a golf tournament in the lead-up to the Test, which combined with a low score in his only innings of the match, having been unable to open the batting in either innings, prompted calls for his axing.
In his response, Khawaja took aim at ‘racial stereotypes’ he argued prompted some of the criticism.
“I hurt my back, I had back spasms, and it was something I couldn’t control,” he said.
“The way the media and the past players came out and attacked me – I could have copped it for two days, but I copped it for about five days straight.
“It wasn’t even about my performances, it was about something very personal – it was about my preparation. And the way everyone came at me about my preparation, it was quite personal in terms of things like ‘He’s not committed to the team, he was only worried about himself, he played this golf comp the day before, he’s selfish, he doesn’t train hard enough, he didn’t train the day before the same, he’s lazy.
“These are the same stereotypes, racial stereotypes, I’ve grown up with my whole life.
“I just thought that media and the old players and everyone else had moved past them, but we obviously haven’t fully moved past them, because I have never seen anyone being treated like that in the Australian cricket team before. For their performances, yeah, but not for the uncontrollables, the way you guys went at me.
“That was the thing that disappointed me the most, because I thought we were past that, but there’s still a little bit out there, which I still have to fight every single day, which is the frustrating thing for me.
“I can give you countless number of guys who’ve played golf the day before and been injured and you guys haven’t said a thing, no one else has said a thing. I can give you even more, probably, response of guys who’ve had 15 schooners the night before, and then gotten injured, and no one’s said a word. It’s alright, they’re just being Aussie larrikins, they’re just being lads.
“But when I get injured, everyone went at my credibility and who I am as a person … normally, when someone gets injured, you feel sorry for them, you feel a little bit of remorse. Poor Josh Hazlewood or poor Nathan Lyon, he’s gotten injured, we feel really sorry for them, we don’t attack what happened to them.”
Khawaja also attributed some of the outcry to his outspokenness over the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, with his support of Palestine and calls for peace attracting criticism from pro-Israeli groups.
“I kind of know why I get nailed a lot of the time – particularly over the last two years, I understand that I’ve talked about certain issues outside of cricket, which leaves me exposed, which a lot of people don’t like,” he said.
“I still find it hard when I say that everyone deserves freedom, and that Palestinians deserve freedom and equal rights, why that is such a big issue. But I get it, I put myself out there.
“Even when we talk about Australian politics, we get all these right-wing politicians that are anti-immigration and anti-Islamophobia [sic] and I speak up against it, I know people don’t love that. I feel like I have to, because where these guys are trying to divide, create hate and try to create animosity in the Australian community, I’m doing the exact opposite. I’m trying to bring everyone together. I’m trying to bring inclusivity into Australia, I’m trying to say ‘I’m the Australian Muslim from Pakistan, and I’m an Australian cricketer right in front of you who loves playing cricket, loves going out and doing everything that you do.
“We talk about integrating into the country – I’ve got a white wife over there who I love and cherish, and I’ve got half-Australian, half-Pakistani kids.
“That is very frustrating to me at times, and I know what the older generation, I know what people say about me – say in your spot, don’t speak about topics you don’t know, you’re just a cricketer, do your thing.
“But how do you think it makes me feel when people talk about immigration, or they start attacking Islam or Muslims for everything that’s going on?
“I’m an immigrant in Australia that came here at the age of five. It’s personal. When you start attacking my faith, my belief system, it’s personal. So I’m going to speak about that, because not many athletes do, and I understand why they don’t, because look what happened to me at the start of this series. I got absolutely nailed.”
Born in Islamabad, his parents moved to Australia when he was five and Khawaja quickly made a name for himself in the junior representative pathways as a teenager for NSW.
He made his first-class debut in 2008 at the age of 21 and was promoted to the national team three years later, becoming the first Muslim cricketer to play for Australia.
An elegant left-handed batter, he switched to Queensland the following year and was used in the middle order for most of his career but his time in the national team looked like it was coming to an end when he was dropped midway through the 2019 Ashes tour for Marnus Labuschagne.
He made a roaring return to the Test team during the 2021-22 series against England, scoring twin hundreds at the SCG in his comeback match and went on to establish a successful opening partnership with childhood friend David Warner.
Khawaja hit career-best form over the next two years with 1080 runs at 67.5 with four hundreds in 2022 and 1210 at 62.6 the following year.
He was named ICC Test player of the year in 2023.
After scoring a crucial century in the 2023 Ashes, his form has dipped over the past two years and after missing the second Ashes Test in Brisbane, he was initially left out of the XI for the third match in Adelaide before earning a late reprieve in the middle order when Steve Smith was ruled out at the last minute with a bout of vertigo.
He kept his spot for the fourth Test in Melbourne after registering 82 and 40 but after coach Andrew McDonald earlier this week said the team was not going to rush him into making a decision, Khawaja has decided to go out on a high with the Ashes urn to be presented to the squad at the end of the match in Sydney.