IND vs AUS 2023: Usman Khawaja misses India flight due to visa delay, set to travel on February 2nd

Star Aussie opener Usman Khawaja missed his flight to India due to the delay in hisvisa arrival,and is now set to travel on Thursday, February 2nd. As two sets of Australian players and coaching staff reached India on Tuesday, Khawaja was left behind waiting for his visa. As reported by the Cricbuzz, the delay was caused mainly because of the physical copy of the same was unavailable by the time the second set of Australian contingent left for India. Cricket Australia expects the visa to arrive by late Wednesday and Usman will be on his flight to India for the Border-Gavaskar series the next day.

The left-handed batter also shared a meme on his Instagramhandle that read, “Me waiting for my Indian Visa like… #stranded #dontleaveme #standard #anytimenow."

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The Australian team will first attend a four-day camp in Bengaluru before flying to Nagpur for the first Test. Upon announcing earlier that Australia will not play a tour game in India ahead of the marquee Test series, the team management arranged a two-day pre-series camp in Sydney where they practiced on torn and used pitches.

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Meanwhile, Usman Khawaja was recently awarded Australia’s Men’s Test Player of the Year for 2022 on Monday for his stellar show in the five-day format in the last year– where he scored 1020 runs in 12 matches at an impressive average of 78.46. The 36-year-old opener also made it to the ICC’s Test Team of the Year alongside teammates Marnus Labuschagne, captain Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon.

Khawaja, who was part of Australia’s previous two tours to India in 2013 and 2017, is yet to play a Test there. A very good player of spin bowling, Islamabad-born Khawaja, during his last tour to Pakistan in March 2022, scored 496 runs in three Tests at an average of whopping 165.33. He scored two hundreds including his best of 160. This time against the spin-heavy Indian bowling line-up, he is expected to provide stability at the top.

The four-match Test series begins on February 9th in Nagpur with Delhi (17-21 Feb), Dharamsala (1-5 Mar) and Ahmedabad (9-13 Mar) scheduled to host the remaining three Tests.

Here’s Australia’s 18-man squad for India Tests –

Pat Cummins (captain), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner