“Unstoppable since his comeback!”- Twitter fans laud Usman Khawaja for becoming 1st Aussie batter to achieve this special feat in BGT series

It was Khawaja's maiden Test hundred against India. He became the 11th Australian opener to slam a ton on Indian soil. The 36-year-old also became the first opener to score a Test hundred in India since Shane Watson's ton in 2010.


“Unstoppable since his comeback!”- Twitter fans laud Usman Khawaja for becoming 1st Aussie batter to achieve this special feat in BGT series

Usman Khawaja

Australia batters dominated Day 1 of the fourth Border-Gavaskar Trophy series on Thursday (March 9) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The reason behind their having that upper hand was the opener Usman Khawaja‘s century. His ton finally ended Australia’s century drought in the series, helping his side reach 255-4 at stumps.

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The left-handed Khawaja will start his innings tomorrow from 104*. Today, he stitched a valuable 79-run partnership with Steve Smith, who scored 38 runs, his highest so far in this series. 

There was a lot of emotion in that,” Khawaja said and recalled his previous tours of India at stumps. “I’ve been to India two tours before this, and I carried the drinks for all eight Test matches. It was a long journey. To finally get a hundred in India, as an Australian, that’s what you want to do, it’s what you want to tick off, so it’s very special.” Khawaja added that it was a mental battle more than anything. “You need to put your ego away. I’ve got no superstitions…just run through, stretch.

Notably, it was Khawaja’s maiden Test hundred against India. He became the 11th Australian opener to slam a ton on Indian soil. The 36-year-old also became the first opener to score a Test hundred in India since Shane Watson’s ton in 2010, and the only third Australian opener since 2001 to reach the three-figure mark on the Indian subcontinent.

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Related: “Lot of talk around pitches,” Rahul Dravid speaks about Ahmedabad pitch and ICC’s ‘poor’ rating for Indore pitch

Check how Twitter reacted to Usman Khawaja’s century

Usman Khawaja
Usman Khawaja

Earlier, the two Prime Ministers of both countries, Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese attended the stadium to celebrate 75 years of friendship between the two countries. After that, Steve Smith won the toss and elected to bat first.

Usman Khawaja and Travis Head gave the start the Aussies needed, with their 61-run stand, before Ravichandran Ashwin broke it by dismissing the latter. Steve Smith could have scored his first half-century had not Ravindra Jadeja bowled him out to break the 79-run stand with Khawaja. Tomorrow, Khawaja will walk out alongside Cameron Green who stayed unbeaten at 49 and at the same time stitched an unbroken 85-run stand.

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India have already retained the trophy and need to win this Test to secure their berth in the World Test Championship Final, which is slated to be held in June this year at The Oval. Australia have already qualified for the same after their nine-wicket victory in the Indore Test.

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