The importance of Pat Cummins and Usman Khawaja to Australia’s Test side has been reflected by the pair being the only players to retain their places in this masthead’s team of the year.
Both were automatic selections, along with the third Australian in the side Travis Head, Joe Root and Stuart Broad.
There were some major casualties from last year’s XI, including Marnus Labuschagne, Babar Azam and Ben Stokes, while Steve Smith misses out again.
The decline of Test cricket outside the global heavyweights of India, Australia and England was reflected by only four of the XI coming from the nine other full-member nations.
In a year when some had much more exposed form than others, it was not easy to match up player records. Weighting was given to the bigger series but in the cases of Kane Williamson, Kagiso Rabada and Dimuth Karunaratne, their numbers were compelling.
The Australia opener backed up his stellar comeback year of 2022 with an excellent 2023, in which he was clearly the leading run-scorer. A force at home, Khawaja also stood up on difficult tracks in India and was comfortably his team’s best in the Ashes. The 37-year-old’s challenge in 2024 will be to maintain his high standards while also guiding his next opening partner through a testing new phase of their career.
13 Tests: 1210 runs at 52.6, three centuries
Usman Khawaja plays off the back foot against Pakistan during the Boxing Day Test.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Australia’s all-conquering skipper, and the player of her generation: The stars of our top XIs for 2023
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30.12.2023
The importance of Pat Cummins and Usman Khawaja to Australia’s Test side has been reflected by the pair being the only players to retain their places in this masthead’s team of the year.
Both were automatic selections, along with the third Australian in the side Travis Head, Joe Root and Stuart Broad.
There were some major casualties from last year’s........
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