“Best environment I’ve been in,” he said. “I haven’t done a warm-up in about seven Test matches. Nothing hurts you more than a warm-up. Think it’s added two more years to my career, 100%. Ron’s [McDonald] been great about that, so has Patty. It’s those small things that has really helped the environment. I used to find it really intense and it used to take a lot of mental energy, all the, I call it the fluff, the box ticking. Since I’ve been back there really hasn’t been any of that. It has really opened up a lot of space in the mind.”
After glancing skywards on bringing up his hundred, Khawaja brought out another of the dance-move celebrations that he unfurled against England. “Religion is a big part of my life…my family and religion the two most important things in my life,” he said. “I keep the religion thing pretty private and do my own thing. The celebrations after it, I always enjoying bringing a bit of colour to Test cricket, both figuratively and literally.”
“There’s no guarantee in cricket, I could get eight ducks in a row, but I know a process that works for me,” he said.
“You can easily go into that mindset of just trying to survive…in comparison to still being in a positive mindset, that doesn’t mean you need to be reckless,” batting coach Justin Sammons said. “What Khawaja has done so well is to stay in his game plan. He was positive, but scored within his game plan, think that will be key for us. We’ve still got this game then two against West Indies to finish our season and we want to take as much confidence going into that series as we can.”