We’ve been so busy talking about Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith and Nathan McSweeney that we’ve hardly gotten around to talking about Usman Khawaja and his ever-diminishing returns.

Centuries aren’t everything, but they are milestones in a Test batsman’s career, and it’s some time since Khawaja passed one. His last hundred was in the first Test of the Ashes last year – three partners ago.

Usman Khawaja goes cheaply again.Credit: Getty Images

The least of Khawaja’s virtues hitherto was an important one for an opener: he stayed in. Now even that faculty is deserting him. He’s 38 and his average is 44 and the margin between those figures keeps narrowing. Don Bradman broke his age several times, but that was at golf.

Khawaja has become an endearing figure in Australian cricket, but public favour is not inexhaustible and nor should it be. It buys time, but ultimately cannot be substituted for performance.

His struggles exemplify what has become of this series and perversely enough why it is so engrossing. The players most under the hammer on both sides are the oldest and best loved, and no one seems to know quite what to do about them.

When it comes to change, cricket is the most sentimental game of all. To corrupt LP Hartley, the past is a familiar........

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