ISLAMABAD : Australia opener Usman Khawaja narrowly missed out on what would have been a memorable hundred in Pakistan on Sunday but the 35-year-old considers himself lucky just to be playing in the country of his birth.
Khawaja’s breezy 97 led Australia’s robust reply to Pakistan’s 476-4 declared in the opening test at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium.
The excitement was building up for what would have been his third test hundred in five innings but the Islamabad-born left-hander bungled a reverse sweep, a short that otherwise proved particularly productive, to fall short.
“It’s disappointing. Cricket is a funny game, it’s just three runs,” Khawaja told reporters after Australia finished day three on 271-2.
“You bat so well for 97 and then you get out, you’re don’t get a hundred.
“You come back into the change rooms and it probably feels worse than getting a 20 in some respects.
“I would have loved a hundred out here in Rawalpindi, down the road from where I grew up.”
The left-hander made a successful return to test cricket in the Sydney Ashes test against England in January.
Playing his first test in more than two years, Khawaja, batting at number five, smashed a century in each innings.
“To put it in perspective, I wasn’t even in the Australian team a few months ago. So I’m very grateful to be here,” he said.
Khawaja said most of his relatives were in Karachi, which hosts the second test from Mar. 12.
(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by Ed Osmond)
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