‘Australia should pick and stick with Usman Khawaja’ – Shane Watson

With Steve Smith and David Warner in the middle of their 12-month bans and Cameron Bancroft out till at least the end the year, Australia have a dearth of senior batsmen to pick from.

Khawaja is one of them, along with Shaun Marsh, and he is likely to be picked in the side for the two-Test series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in October, given the excellent form he has displayed in Australia A’s tour of India. He scored a 101* against India B in a List A match, and then followed it up with a 127 in the first four-day game against India A.

Watson, however, said it wasn’t enough to just pick Khawaja, but stick with him during the lean phases. “I hope Uzzie gets a really good run,” Watson told cricket.com.au. “He's one of our world-class batsmen, across all formats.

“He just needs have the confidence instilled in him by the selectors and by the coaching staff, to let him play with the freedom he does when he's at his best. We don't have a lot of world-class batsmen at the moment around Australian cricket and he's absolutely one.

“But when he's not getting selected all the time, he's worried about failing. Then you can see him going into his shell and that's not when he's at his best. When he is at his best he's one of the best ones we've got.

“So they need to look after him. If they keep playing him for one or two Test matches and then dropping him, that's not getting the best out of him.”

Watson, in fact, advocated the implementation of that approach at a larger scale, saying players needed that leeway to bring the best out of themselves. “When you're not performing in any walk of life, then you can sense when the heat is starting to come on,” said Watson.

“The biggest challenge, mentally, is not letting that infiltrate when you're playing at your best. Because when you're playing at your best, you're not thinking about needing to score runs, you're thinking about how and where I am going to score my runs.

“That's where they need to get back to in Australian cricket. Give them the confidence that they have got time, they can play their natural game, not play someone in one Test match and then drop them.”

Dropping a player after a couple of poor performances, Watson said, affects the whole team, including the new player coming in. "It's not just the player that gets dropped,” he said. “The other players around then go 'if they can drop him that quick, I better score runs'. And then the person coming in would be thinking 'if I don’t score runs in this first game, then I might be out as well'.”

The first Test against Pakistan will begin on 7 October. The sides will also play three Twenty20 Internationals after the second Test, which begins on 16 October.