IND vs AUS: Carried drinks for 8 Tests in India - Emotional Khawaja after hitting hundred in Ahmedabad

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Australia opener Usman Khawaja on Thursday scored a scintillating unbeaten hundred at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad to put his team in a commanding situation on Day 1 of the fourth Test against Australia.

On the back of his 14th Test hundred - first against India - Australia ended Day 1 on a solid 255/4. The southpaw stayed unbeaten on 104 off 251 on a batting-friendly track where his other teammates failed to convert their starts into big scores. Even Steve Smith stayed in the middle for 135 balls but departed after scoring 38 runs.

Post the match, the 36-year-old vented out his emotions and was brutally honest in revealing the reason why he "smiled so much" on reaching his sixth hundred since his comeback in January 2022. He recalled how he carried only drinks and wasn't given a chance on Australia's previous tours of India.

"I don't think I have ever smiled so much on getting a century, there was emotion in it. I have done two (Test) tours of India before (2013 and 2017). Carried the drinks for eight Test matches before I got a chance here," Khawaja said.

"Throughout the middle of my career I got told I couldn’t play spin and that's why I never got an opportunity to play in India.

"It's just nice to go out there and tick off a hundred in India which was something if you asked me five years ago if you told me that I would think you were crazy," Khawaja doesn't let you miss the point as to what it meant for him.

"There was a lot of emotion, I just never expected this to happen," the Pakistan-born cricketer added.

On being asked if he really thought he wasn't good enough against spin, the southpaw stated that he had started to believe in the perceptions others had for him.

"Maybe to some extent. But think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy in its own way. People start saying that then perception is reality. Anytime I got out to spin, people were like 'you can't play spin'. I probably started believing it myself," he said.

He also opened up on the lack of support from the coaching staff and selectors in the past.

"I didn't really get the support from the people around me at the time. I didn't feel like the team really supported me. I didn't feel like the coaching staff and selectors really supported me through that journey. It just made it so hard," Khawaja bluntly said.

"Whether I was or wasn’t, yes I’m a better player of spin now, no doubt about that, I have more shots, better defence. But I didn’t really get the opportunity to learn at that early stage."

Khawaja reveals how gained confidence against playing spin

"Fortunately enough, I am quite stubborn so went out of my own way to learn, then we had a couple of A tours here in India which helped a lot. Had to go back and figure it out all by myself."

Since his comeback in the playing XI of the Australia Test team in 2022, Khawaja has scored 1532 runs in 16 matches at an average of 69.63. He is currently the leading run-scorer in the ongoing series as well. Khawaja has scored 257 runs in 7 innings (7th ongoing) at an average of 42.83. He happens to be the only batter in the series to score a hundred in two fifties.