Australia head coach Andrew McDonald confirmed that the medical team is looking after the issue, considering that Usman Khawaja had never sustained a back injury in his career of 14 years
Usman Khawaja (Pic: File Pic)
In the first Test match of the Ashes series against England, Australia secured a win by eight wickets at the Optus Stadium in Perth.
During the match, Australia's traditional opening batsman, Usman Khawaja, was not able to open the innings due to back spasms. However, his only outing with the bat in the first innings also ended on a poor note. Facing six balls, the left-hander managed to score just two runs.
Australia head coach Andrew McDonald confirmed that the medical team is looking after the issue, considering that the left-hander had never sustained a back injury in his career of 14 years.
"There were discussions around further investigation to whether it was more serious than what we sort of first anticipated," McDonald said as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.
"So we will work through that. We will get a squad together. We will step through everything we normally do. We get to camp in six days' time. It is a long way out, a lot of information to gather between now and then, and hopefully, Usman is fit and available for selection," he added.
In the second innings, Travis Head opened the innings for the Aussies and smashed 123 runs off just 83 deliveries. His fiery Test knock also included 16 boundaries and four maximums. Along with him, Marnus Labuschagne, too, scored an unbeaten 51 runs off 49 balls, including six boundaries and a maximum.
Speaking about the potential shuffle in the batting lineup, moving forward in the five-match Test series, the head coach said the management has had discussions about it.
"Batting orders are always debated heavily over a period of time. Middle-order players have not been the ones most popular to open the batting. So we will discuss and work through what it looks like," he said.
"I think it gave us a little bit of a lens potentially to the future in terms of adjusting batting orders in the second innings, which is something that we have discussed. To be able to put different people in different positions with the scenario that was presented. So this one happened probably through a bit more chance, and obviously, the unfortunate injury to Usman. But I think it really probably opens up that discussion more than, more than anything else for us," added McDonald.
He also said that the management also conducted discussions about Travis Head taking over the opener's slot for a long period of time for Australia.
"In particular, if we needed quick runs, and the wicket was going to deteriorate. So in our strategy and our planning, we have tabled that from time to time," said the 44-year-old former cricketer.
"We have had a conversation around Travis opening the batting for a long period of time, and Trav's has been on the record this week and previously around that also. I suppose, now that it is out there, yeah, happy to talk about it. Will we do it? If it presents at the right time, potentially," he signed off.
(With ANI Inputs)
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