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Usman Khawaja shares his frustating journey from Australia to India for the Test series
By SMCS - Feb 6, 2023 2:00 pm
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Australia opener Usman Khawaja has expressed the exhausting journey that he had to go through to reach India for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series due to his visa issue. The veteran opener also missed the flight to India while his teammates reached India after the Cricket Australia Awards last Monday as well. However, he has left for India last Thursday after his visa issue was sorted and joined the team as well.

Usman Khawaja

“It was what it was – I just wanted to get over there to be honest. There’s a good Sydney flight straight from Sydney to Bangalore and I missed that unfortunately, which sucked,” Khawaja told The Sydney Morning Herald. “It was long, I had to go down to Melbourne and then from Melbourne I got delayed going three hours from Sydney to Melbourne, so it took me five or six hours to get there.”

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“Then I got delayed again from Melbourne to Delhi by four hours again, so just delay after delay after delay. Still a little bit groggy from the flight. Oh well, I’m here now,” he further added.

khawaja
Usman Khawaja

However, Australia will head to Nagpur, the venue of the first Test, which is starting February 9. Meanwhile, India have been training at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium from Friday with the likes of captain Rohit Sharma, former captain Virat Kohli and senior batter Cheteshwar Pujara being part of the training sessions as well.

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Khawaja will be important to Australia’s chances of ending their 18-year-long wait for a Test series win in India as well. The left-handed batter has been in sublime form, winning the inaugural Shane Warne Award for men’s Test player at the Cricket Australia awards. He has scored 1080 runs in 11 Tests in 2022 as well.