Usman Khawaja says it’s a “myth” that an opening combination needs a fast scorer as he endorsed the selection of Nathan McSweeney as his new partner at the top of Australia’s batting order.

South Australia’s captain McSweeney, 25, has won the battle to fill the vacant opener’s role despite him batting at No.3 in Sheffield Shield cricket.

Khawaja, who himself made the transition from middle-order batsman to opener, backed McSweeney to succeed playing his natural game, and felt he didn’t need to change his style by becoming a dasher in the mould of retired opening batsman David Warner.

“I don’t know where this myth started that you needed someone to score really fast,” Khawaja said ahead of the start of Australia’s Test series against India on Friday week in Perth.

“As an opener you’re trying to score runs and you’ve got five days to do it.

“We didn’t have one Test match go for five days, last year. Opening is as much about scoring runs and just being able to absorb that time.

“Davey was special. He could score runs while absorbing. He could sometimes score 100 of 100 balls but he didn’t do it every time. Sometimes it took 스포츠토토사이트 him 170, 180 balls to get that 100.

“He was consistent, he was out there, he was setting a platform for guys later to come in and score runs.

“Those two are both very important things, and I think Nathan does that really well. He can score runs, but he can also bat time.

“They’re really important facets to have in Test cricket if you want to set games up.”

However, Khawaja warned McSweeney that there were “no guarantees in cricket”, but said that his former Queensland teammate didn’t “have to do anything different” in the Test arena.

“You just try to repeat the process,” he said.

“The only thing that really changes is that you have a few more people watching. Not many people watch Shield cricket.