Former Test No.3 Usman Khawaja is refusing to look as far ahead as Australia’s tour to the West Indies as he focuses on continuing his century-making form in this week’s Sheffield Shield clash with Tasmania.
Khawaja made a stylish 100 from 106 balls in NSW’s three-wicket loss to the Tigers in Saturday’s one-day match at Bellerive.
The ton was a reminder to national selectors concerned about the form of current No.3 Shaun Marsh of Khawaja’s undoubted talent with the tour to the Caribbean beginning next month.
The 25-year-old was dropped from the Test line-up, along with Blues team-mate Phil Hughes, after the disastrous loss to New Zealand, also at Bellerive, in December.
“There’s always the opportunity but I can’t look too far ahead,” Khawaja said.
“We’ve got to win four games hopefully … to give ourselves a chance to be in the Shield final so, if we can do that, I’ll be a very happy man.”
Khawaja said the break from the longer forms of the game to accommodate the inaugural Big Bash League hadn’t made it difficult to find form.
“Time in the middle’s time in the middle,” he said.
“I enjoyed the Big Bash – it was a lot of fun.
“We’ve got four Shield games still left and another one-dayer still left so there’s a hell of a lot of cricket still left for us.”
Australian Twenty20 and Tasmanian captain George Bailey cracked 94 in the Tigers’ chase on Saturday after flying into Hobart that morning.
He’d flown out of a storm around his national captaincy debut in the two T20 matches against India, when he was criticised by commentators for his tactics.
“I’ve tried to avoid most of the press over the last couple of weeks, good or bad,” Bailey said.
“You’re trying to factor all that stuff out I guess and just focus on what you can control and the players you’re playing with.”
Both sides have been forced to rest international stars for the match beginning on Monday with Ben Hilfenhaus missing for the third-placed Tigers and Brad Haddin for the fifth-placed Blues.
Bailey said the defending champions’ fate was in their own hands with four games to play.
“We know where we’re at and the good thing for us is we play Queensland and Western Australia and both teams are ahead of us on the table,” he said.
“This is a really important game for us. It will set us up in a good way.”
Tasmania: George Bailey (capt), Jackson Bird, Luke Butterworth, Steve Cazzulino, Mark Cosgrove, Ed Cowan, Alex Doolan, Brendan Drew, James Faulkner, Matt Johnston, Brady Jones, Jason Krejza (12th man TBA).
NSW: Stephen O’Keefe (capt), Trent Copeland, Scott Coyte, Nathan Hauritz, Moises Henriques, Phil Hughes, Simon Katich, Usman Khawaja, Josh Lalor, Peter Nevill, Ben Rohrer, Steve Smith (12th man TBA).
