Usman Khawaja finally scored his first hundred runs in a Test match in England on Saturday at Edgbaston, the first match of the Ashes series.
He had been waiting for this moment for ten years.
After Stuart Broad struck twice in two balls to remove David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne, Australia was in a precarious position with a score of 67-3. England captain Ben Stokes then took the prize wicket of star batsman Steve Smith, bringing England’s score to 73-3.
However, at the end of the second day of this five-match series, they had recovered to 311 runs for five wickets, with opening batsman Khawaja not out for 126 and wicketkeeper Alex Carey unbeaten on 52. Together, they had scored 91 runs without losing a wicket.
After that, Australia was still 82 runs behind England’s first-innings score of 393-8 declared, which was based on Joe Root’s not out score of 118.
Pat Cummins, the captain of the newly crowned World Test winners Australia, said on Thursday that his team did not need to adopt the ultra-aggressive ‘Bazball’ style of batting that England is known for. He said, “Somewhere our batters might take 200 balls to get a hundred and that’s totally fine.”
Khawaja reached his century off 199 balls, which was his 15th in Tests but his eighth in 18 matches since he was returned the previous year. He finished his innings with a late-cut four from Stokes, which lent credence to the statements that he made.
The dogged stay of Khawaja seemed to have come to an end when Broad bowled him for 112 in the first over with the new ball, but replays showed that the veteran seamer had overstepped the wicket for a borderline no-ball, and Khawaja was spared from being dismissed.
Broad had already brought Australia’s score down to 29-2 when he once again prevailed over Warner, a player whom he had previously dismissed seven times during the drawn 2019 Ashes in England.
When the left-hander was on nine on a cloudy morning that favored England’s quick bowlers, he chased a wide delivery from Broad and inside edged into his stumps. This resulted in his being dismissed.
And the roars of the fans grew deafening the following ball as Labuschagne, the world’s top-ranked Test batsman, went for a golden duck after edging a Broad outswinger that was magnificently captured one-handed low down by diving wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow. Labuschagne had fallen for a duck after he had edged the ball.
Smith was successful in avoiding the hat-trick delivery, but he never seemed comfortable throughout his stay of 59 balls, which did not include a single boundary.
Stokes’ bowling health had been called into doubt due to an ongoing injury to his left knee, but the sprightly all-rounder struck when he slapped Smith on the back foot with a nip-back delivery. Smith was forced to play backwards.
Smith, whose two centuries in the Ashes opening at Edgbaston four years ago drove Australia to a 251-run triumph, was out for 16 after the batsman’s review backed the judgment of the South African umpire Marais Erasmus.
But Khawaja and Travis Head stopped England’s advance with an 81-run partnership for the fourth wicket as the ball began to lose its sheen and the circumstances for batting became more favorable.
Both left-handed batters attacked Moeen Ali, and both of them hit the recalled off-spinner for sixes on the ground in Birmingham that he calls home.
But Stokes kept Moeen going in what was the bowler’s first Test match in almost two years since he’retired’ from all red-ball cricket. Moeen was filling in for Jack Leach, who was unable to play due to an injury.
His trust was rewarded when Head, who had just scored a hundred in Australia’s victory over India in the World T20 final at The Oval the previous week, fell for a usually swift 50 off of 63 balls after dragging a drive off Moeen to Zak Crawley at midwicket. Head’s hundred came in Australia’s victory over India at The Oval.
Cameron Green, on a second-ball nought, charged at a sharply-turning Moeen delivery, but Bairstow failed to take advantage of a clear chance to stump him. As a result, Australia’s score remained at 148-4 even though it should have been 148-5. Moeen was able to bowl Green for 38 in the end, but this was only after the all-rounder had built up a partnership of 72 runs with Khawaja.
Bairstow, who struck a run-a-ball 78 on Friday, also dropped Alex Carey when he was on 26 off of the occasional spinner Root. Having been picked as England’s keeper ahead of Ben Foakes, who is undoubtedly a stronger gloveman but not as good a batter, Bairstow was able to score more runs than Ben Foakes.