Australia’s opener has made caution his Ashes strategy and perhaps his obduracy induced fatigue in a depleted England attack
Across this entire Ashes series, it has felt like a contest of philosophies as much as a contest of teams. England have done a fair bit of talking, and had a lot more talking done on their behalf, about their adventurous style of play and how it is upending Test cricket norms. Australia have insisted that they don’t care about England’s style and will carry on with convention. In the first two Tests England’s insistence on delivering on the talk verged on being performative, and to their own detriment. In the fifth Test Australia might have done something the same.
The man who has embodied the conflict has been Usman Khawaja. When the series began at Edgbaston, after England’s helter-skelter opening day included 393 runs and a declaration, Khawaja went the opposite way. He faced 321 balls in the first innings, 197 in the second, pressing forward with the softest hands and defusing each delivery. As England tried to heat the game up, making its molecules bounce with agitation, Khawaja was the cold compress, the only sound a slow hiss of steam as he took temperature out of the match.
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