WATCH: When Usman Khawaja imitated Saqlain Mushtaq’s iconic bowling action in a Shield game

Australian middle-order bat Usman Khawaja was seen rolling his arm over in a Sheffield Shield encounter at the start of the 2021-22 home summer, with his action evident of his honest attempt at imitating Pakistan’s great off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq. The amusing instance of Khawaja trying his hand at spin bowling is from the Queensland versus […]
 
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WATCH: When Usman Khawaja imitated Saqlain Mushtaq’s iconic bowling action in a Shield game

Australian middle-order bat Usman Khawaja was seen rolling his arm over in a Sheffield Shield encounter at the start of the 2021-22 home summer, with his action evident of his honest attempt at imitating Pakistan’s great off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq.

The amusing instance of Khawaja trying his hand at spin bowling is from the Queensland versus Tasmania Shield first-class match played in Adelaide last year.

During the 74th over of the innings, Khawaja decided to bowl off-spin from around-the-wicket angle and made as best as an effort he could’ve to correctly imitate the legendary Mushtaq.

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WATCH: When Usman Khawaja imitated Saqlain Mushtaq’s iconic bowling action in a Shield game

Usman Khawaja was seen bowling off-spin in a Shield game earlier in the summer.

Usman Khawaja imitates ‘Saqlain Mushtaq’

While it was difficult to tell in real-time what Usman Khawaja is upto, the elegant Aussie batter later revealed to the broadcasters that he was indeed trying to imitate Mushtaq, who played 49 Tests and 169 ODIs for Pakistan with nearly 500 international wickets.

WATCH: When Usman Khawaja imitated Saqlain Mushtaq’s iconic bowling action in a Shield game

This was the rarest of rare instances of Khawaja bowling at the domestic level. The 35-year-old has never bowled in List A and T20 cricket and has only rolled his arm on 14 occasions over 165 first-class matches in his career with one wicket. Even in Test cricket, he has bowled in only 2 innings for a total of 12 balls.

Khawaja is known more for his batting, which he has done incredibly well since his return to Australia’s Test line-up for the New Year’s Ashes Test at SCG against England.

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Left out of the squad after a poor tour of England back in 2019, Usman Khawaja came roaring back in the Test playing XI at the start of 2022 with his twin hundreds in Sydney. The left-hander made a terrific 137 in the first innings and backed it up with a 101 not out in the second innings.

In a career where he was shown glimpses of his undoubted class and potential but without ever really stamping his authority consistently, Khawaja now averages 40.66 with 2,887 runs from 44 Tests.