Usman Khawaja

In any sport, some people look the part from their very first minute at the top level.

Michael Clarke was one such case himself when he made his debut way back in 2004, and this day was supposed to be all about his coming of age. The Pup, at last, was Top Dog.

But even before Clarke departed with just four runs to his name, it became clear that this grey, slow, rain-interrupted first day of a dead rubber would be remembered for the emergence of Usman Khawaja.

Continue reading "The Punch @ the SCG, Day 1 Khawaja looks the goods" »

Australian selectors, who generally rate somewhere between journalists and used car salesmen on the vocational popularity scale, may just have gotten something right for a change.

On the face of it, naming an extended 17 man Ashes squad was a classic act of fence-sitting. But in another sense, it shows that selectors have finally heard the public outcry to remove the dead wood.

By picking 17, Andrew Hilditch and his cronies have put the serial underperformers on notice, by picking an in-form specialist for each of the incumbents currently under threat.

Continue reading "Ashes selectors finally put underperformers on notice" »