Hughes has his numbers from early days to back him up but for Khawaja I was impressed with his opening innings in international cricket. He showed no signs of nerves, played with straight, gave no chances. He only scored 37 in that innings but he looked assuring when he was in the crease. Chanel Nine commentators Mark Taylor, Ian Healy and Michael Slater were full of praise for him. He was only to do better from that point. He somewhat did but inconsistently, played an important knock of 60+ in that series drawing 2nd test against South Africa before being dropped. I think selectors were not so happy with other aspects of his game namely fielding.
However, the interesting part of the article was how the selectors were monitoring the efforts of dropped players and also letting them know through discussions in the media.
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