Australian veteran opener Usman Khawaja could not open yesterday in the first Ashes Test. He left the field for eight minutes due to back stiffness, which meant that the 38-year-old could only open after eight minutes have elapsed in the second innings as a result, Australia had to send Marnus Labuschange as the opener instead of Usman Khawaja. As debutant Jake Weatherald was dismissed for a duck in the first over, skipper Steve Smith had to come in at number four.

It was later come to known that Khawaja had played golf ahead of the Test match during an optional training session. However, CA clarified that the back spasms are a type of injury that Khawaja did have before, and it had nothing to do with golf.

“Did that correlate to any of the issues? I personally don’t think so. Usman’s a

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