'He is a gun but four Test matches is a long time': Usman Khawaja opens up on R Ashwin challenge ahead of IND vs AUS

The series gets underway from Thursday in Nagpur and shots have already been fired from both camps. The chatter has mostly been around the Indian pitches as Australia also hired a R Ashwin “duplicate” to tackle the carrom-ball specialist in the blockbuster clash.

The stage is set as Australia and India are both ready to sweat it out in yet another cracking edition of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The series gets underway from Thursday in Nagpur and shots have already been fired from both camps. The chatter has mostly been around the Indian pitches as Australia also hired a R Ashwin “duplicate” to tackle the carrom-ball specialist in the blockbuster clash.

Usman Khawaja opens up on R Ashwin challenge ahead of IND vs AUS

Ashwin will hold the key heading into the series, as he is the seniormost spinner from the Indian camp, and boasts of a superb record against the Aussies. Ashwin has so far scalped 89 wickets in the 18 Tests he has played against Australia, which is also his highest against any other teams.

Sharing his thoughts on the same, star Australian batter Usman Khawaja called the Indian a “gun” but is optimistic about passing the challenge with flying colours. He made the remarks during an interaction with Sydney Herald.

“Ashwin is a gun. He’s very skillful, he’s got a lot of tricky little variations, he uses the crease quite well too,” said Khawaja.

The Australian batting line-up will definitely be tested on the Indian pitches, which has a history of assisting the spinners and India will have the services of Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar Patel at their dispense.

“If you asked me the same question when I was younger, I probably wouldn’t have been able to answer a lot of things because I didn’t really learn about how to face what off-spinners are doing. But it’s one of those really good challenges. The wicket’s going to turn here at some point, whether day one, day three or day four, and he (Ashwin) is going to be in the game and bowl a lot of overs. So it’s all about figuring out how I’m going to play against him, how I’m going to score runs against him, what he might do. If you bat a long time against him, he’s going to change his game plans against you,” said Khawaja when asked how he looks forward to beat the challenge.

Australia too have a star studded batting line-up, which boasts of Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, David Warner, if we exclude Khawaja for a bit. However, if we look at Khawaja's recent outings, it won't be wrong to declare that the Pakistan-origin Australia batter has been enjoying the form of his life. Khawaja accumulated 1080 Test runs in 2022, which was also the first time the batter breached the 1000-run mark in a year. The batter carried forward the rich form in 2023 and piled a staggering 195* against South Africa in January.

Thus it won't be wrong to say Khawaja vs Ashwin could well set the tone for the series.

“He’s not the kind of guy who’ll do the same thing over and over, he’s going to try to work you out. So I’m looking forward to it. Four Test matches is a long time, so hopefully I can do alright and score runs for my team, but you know what, it’s always fun. Subcontinent, playing against spin is some of the most fun you’ll have in terms of finding a way to get in and score runs, it’s quite rewarding,” Khawaja further stated.

Australia are currently ruling the charts in Test rankings as well as the World Test Championship (WTC) table. They are followed by India, who will eye nothing but a positive outcome in the series, which will then help them consolidate a berth in the WTC finals, which is most likely to happen between the two sides later in the year.