Australian batsman Usman Khawaja, who was one of the worst performers during their recent drubbing at the hands of Sri Lanka in the Test series which ultimately resulted in him being dropped from the third Test, has vowed to fight hard to regain his place in the Australian Test squad and correct his flaws against spin bowling in time for the Test series in India in 2017.
Khawaja though is for now squarely focussed on the upcoming Matador Cup tournament which will be vital to his chances of earning a recall to the Australian side for the Test series against South Africa, which also includes a day-night Test to be played in Adelaide.
"I will look at that (Test series against India), but I want to concentrate on this summer in Australia ahead," Khawaja said. "There is no point looking at India if I don't score any runs in the summer here and if we don't win games against the current opposition we've got coming. If that bridge comes or when it comes, I'll look at it.
"I've already sort of assessed Sri Lanka, I'm sure all of us have. We have as a group. But us moving forward we need to win at home first. We're playing against two quality attacks. They're very good teams so first and foremost we need to do well there and once we can tick those boxes off we can start looking at India again. I'm sure everyone will have a think about it over the summer."
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Expressing his thoughts on where the Australian team faltered in Sri Lanka, Khawaja said that the visitors just weren’t able to recover from the shock of the first Test defeat after having made a good start to the match.
"As a whole, we probably just didn't adapt to the wickets quickly enough," Khawaja said. "I honestly think we should have won that first Test match. If it wasn't for the little fella, the youngster Mendis playing an absolutely unbelievable innings and getting that hundred that sort of took the game away from us. I firmly believe that if we won that first Test everything would have been a lot different. We obviously didn't, then Galle happened, and Sri Lanka just outplayed us."
As for his own loss of form that led to him to him being dropped for the final Test, Khawaja felt that he was unfortunate to miss out but insisted that he was looking to put the disappointment behind him and aim at getting back in touch.
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"It was tough to not play that last Test match," Khawaja said. "It's never easy being dropped, no matter what the circumstances are. But there's so much cricket still to come. I don't feel like I've lost touch or I'm out of it. Hopefully for me right now it's just about going back to Matador Cup and doing well for Queensland. Hopefully, we can win a trophy, and then hopefully I can be there for the first Test in Perth."
"I don't particularly want to chat about it (discussions before the decision to drop him was conveyed to Khawaja) because it was between myself and the selectors and the coach," Khawaja said. "I'm sure if they want to say something, they can. It didn't seem like it was the end of the world. I can understand where they were coming from, even though it was disappointing and I didn't fully agree with it. At the end of the day, it's out of your hands. You've just got to roll with the punches and hopefully when you get another chance you score runs."
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