Even as England wriggled to get out of the nightmare that the ongoing Ashes has turned out to be for them, Australia’s Usman Khawaja continued to live a dream for himself. From not being in contention for a place in the playing XI to being the hot property whom the team management will struggle to drop, Khawaja has completed a long journey in a span of 4-5 days.

The 35-year-old scored his second century of the match to help Australia to 265/6 declared on the fourth day of the fourth Ashes Test in Sydney on Saturday, handing England an unlikely victory target of 388.

England, whose hopes of avoiding going 0-4 down in the series would seem to rest on obdurate batting and the weather, will resume on the final day on 30 without loss after Haseeb Hameed and Zak Crawley survived 11 overs before stumps.

The visitors were earlier dismissed for 294 in the first 40 minutes of the day. Four of the Australian wickets to fall on the day were taken behind by substitute Ollie Pope, who was keeping wickets with both Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow injured.

The day, though, again belonged to Khawaja. He once again oozed class as he re-energised the Australian innings in a 179-run partnership with all-rounder Cameron Green after they were 86/4 at one stage. Unflappable and stylish, Khawaja added a 101 not out to the

137 he scored in the first innings, punching two runs down the ground to reach his 10th Test century. “Surreal moment,” said Khawaja, who now has three centuries against England at the Sydney Cricket Ground. “I’ve never got back-to-back hundreds in first-class cricket, let alone Test cricket. It’s a nice one to tick off and to

put the team in a situation where we can hopefully win the Test match,” he added. “Pretty special.”

Believe it or not, Khawaja is not expecting to play the next Test. “At the moment I’m not really expecting to play the next Test match, but I’ll always be ready for whatever happens,” Khawaja, playing in Sydney only because Travis Head was ruled out with Covid-19, said.

“Who knows, someone else might get Covid, something might happen. You got to stay ready.”

Written with agency inputs