If I’m coming to watch cricket, I wouldn’t want my kids to be around: Usman Khawaja on the ‘rough’ Ashes treatment from England fans

It’s been three Tests out of the five scheduled for this Ashes summer and for Australian opener Usman Khawaja and his teammates, they haven’t been the easiest. Especially after that final day at Lord’s, which invited the fury of English fans following Jonny Bairstow’s run out, albeit fair and square but that old vague ‘Spirit of Cricket’ discussion inducing. Khawaja himself was involved in a brawl with the MCC members in the Long Room as the visitors walked back to the pavilion during at Lunch.
The Headingley Test saw England pull one back and keep the series alive at 2-1. The local fans can only be expected to make more noise come the Manchester Test.
Khawaja believes the atmosphere at the cricket grounds this summer has been ‘rough’ and has made him think whether he’d want his kids to watch the sport from the stands.

“I mean, they‘re rough. If you talk about it to England guys, they say we are equally as rough when (they go to Australia),” Khawaja told reporters in a presser. “I don‘t agree with it either way. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. Personally if I am coming to the cricket and watching the cricket, I wouldn’t want my kids to be around that. If I saw that I would 100 per cent make a complaint or just leave.”

The southpaw, who got a hundred in the first Test, zeroed in with a particular instance. “I think some of the stuff can be pretty poor. Over at Edgbaston they were calling Travis Head a C, U you know what. I‘m like I can’t believe that you can actually say that in a public domain anywhere.”
Khawaja also accepted that while the atmosphere wasn’t alien to cricket grounds back home in Australia, he isn’t a big fan of it either ways, “It can be a little disappointing at times, and I think we can take it too far in Australia The same thing happens in Australia. I‘m not a big fan of it. I know watching a lot of sport and loving sport that it happens around the world. You watch the NBA it happens there. Particularly when crowds can get real close to you, which they can in cricket.”

The fourth Test between England and Australia starts from Wednesday, July 19 at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground.