Usman Khawaja announces retirement from international cricket, Sydney Ashes Test to be his swansong

Australia’s Ashes summer will end with a moment of reckoning and reflection, with Usman Khawaja confirming that the fifth Test against England at the Sydney Cricket Ground will be the final match of his international career. With Australia holding an unassailable 3-1 lead in the series, the 39-year-old has chosen to bow out at the venue where his Test journey began in 2011, fittingly against the same opposition, closing the circle on a career shaped by persistence, reinvention and resistance.

“I’ve always felt a little bit different, even to now,” Khawaja said. “I’m a coloured cricketer. The Australian cricket team is our pride and joy, but I’ve felt different in the way I’ve been treated and the way things have happened. I know why I get nailed a lot of the time, and I understand that talking about issues outside cricket leaves me exposed.”

“I had back spasms, something I couldn’t control,” he added. “But the way the media and past players came at me wasn’t about performance. It became personal. It was about my preparation, my commitment, who I am as a person. Those are the same racial stereotypes I’ve grown up with my whole life, and I thought we’d moved past that.”