VIDEO | Dickwella takes clue from Rishabh Pant to engage himself in a lengthy banter with Khawaja

While Australia plundered runs in Canberra, Usman Khawaja yet again failed to make any impact with the bat, so much so that, he urged Cricket Australia to give him a break to find his old mojo back. While that was a matter of consideration for CA selectors, Niroshan Dickwella was largely unforgiving of him, like the way Rishabh Pant was for Tim Paine in the last series Down Under. 

Seeing Khawaja struggle, Dickwella compared the Queensland batsman to Marsh brothers who have been in and out of the Australian team. Dickwella quipped behind the stumps, “No runs under his belt, no runs under his belt. I only remember Marsh brothers here.” 

Khawaja found this hard to swallow and he responded back to Dickwella by saying he had allowed Sri Lankan pacer Kasun Rajitha’s request to bowl with his tape on due to his injury and he should understand his sportsmanship before sledging him.

“Do you want me to tell him to take the bowling tape off his fingers?” Khawaja asked Dickwella before adding, “I can, but he won’t bowl anymore.”

Dickwella immediately replied, “Are you that scared of his tape?” 

Khawaja kept his composure and didn’t get carried away by that and said, “Nah, I’m just saying the sportsmanship goes both ways.”

However, the Sri Lankan keeper didn’t end his mind games there and after Khawaja faced one more ball, he instantly resumed, “I really wish you could get some runs here. I don’t want you to feel bad after the series watching your team play on TV.”