Usman Khawaja on the homeworkgate issue before India: “Our priorities at the moment were a bit misplaced.” Test

Usman Khawaja, an Australian cricketer, took a trip down memory lane and discussed the historic “Homeworkgate affair,” which shook the Australian locker room to its core during their 2012–2013 tour of India.

There have been several scandals in Australian cricket. The Australians have been under fire for adopting unfair tactics, using racist slurs, and a number of other things. In addition to the Homeworkgate controversy, which significantly disrupted management’s ability to function, the famed Sandpaper Gate affair is still vivid in people’s minds.

On February 8, 2023, the day before the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India, the 36-year-old remarked in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, “Our priorities at the time were a bit misplaced.”

The left-handed person spoke in-depth about the situation and claimed that Cricket Australia did not operate at all to the standards that were anticipated to be upheld in international cricket. He admitted that rather than focusing on enhancing the players’ performances, the management, including the coach, captain, and other staff members, were more focused in trying to discipline the players. The Baggy Greens eventually suffered some of Test cricket’s most humiliating losses as a result.

Simply said, we lacked India’s talent: Usman Khawaja

The Australian cricketers’ then-coach Mickey Arthur, according to Khawaja, had his priorities all wrong and didn’t miss a single chance to make a complete mockery of the players’ practises.

“We were more concerned with the player box-ticking requirements than with whether or not we were a skilled squad. Mickey Arthur, at the head of the coaching and support staff, tried to focus on everything else, but that wasn’t the reason we were losing. We lost because India had a more skilled team than we did at that stage. We didn’t lose because we weren’t more physically fit or had superior fielding capabilities than India; rather, it was because we lacked their level of skill “He declared.

In 2013, Australia visited India for a four-match Test series. However, as India won the first Test by eight wickets, things did not go according to their plans. The Australian team felt as though they were in a crisis after dropping the first game. Following the defeat, the team’s then-head coach Arthur gave each player the assignment of providing three suggestions for how to enhance both their own performance and the team’s in the remaining Tests.

A day after the loss, the players were informed of their “homework” assignments, and they had four days to deliver the report. They had the choice of texting, emailing, or slipping Arthur a note with the instructions. The support staff and captain Michael Clarke gathered to decide the next step when four players—Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson, James Pattinson, and Usman Khawaja—failed to submit their reports. The three Tests in Mohali were postponed for the four who failed to turn in their “homework.”

Usman Khawaja concluded by saying that after that unpleasant encounter, he experienced paranoid attacks, which made him occasionally feel like a “other” in the Australian locker room.

“Fitting in with the squad was already difficult enough for a new guy. And when something like this occurs, it simply makes you feel more alienated, “Finally, he said.