'I Thought I Was Going To Die': Usman Khawaja Reveals Secret Health Battle During Cricket Career

Usman Khawaja retired from international cricket in January this year. The Australian star played 88 Tests (6,229 runs), 40 ODIs (1,554 runs) and nine T20Is (241 runs). Currently 39, Khawaja recently made a major revelation about his playing career. The star batter said that when he was 22 and part of the New South Wales cricket team, he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, something he kept secret throughout his career. "I genuinely thought I was going to die," Usman, 39, told Australian Story. "I went from being an athlete who was playing professional cricket to not being able to walk 10 metres to the bathroom."

Khawaja made his Australia debut at the age of 25 in a Test match against England in 2011. Khawaja's good friend David Warner and Test teammate Michael Hussey were unaware of the diagnosis.

Khawaja added that the debilitating pain in his left knee terrified him. "If a person can play at the top level as a professional cricketer with rheumatoid arthritis, then I think a lot of other people can achieve a lot too," he said. He will speak in more detail about his illness in his soon-to-be-released autobiography, Sabr.

Usman managed his condition with regular injections of a drug that he calls a "godsend", according to the report. "Without that drug," Usman said, "I would never have played cricket again or even lived a normal life."

He also credited Brett Lee and Adam Gilchrist with helping him settle into the Australian cricket team.

"They're the ones that dragged me over to the Australian cricket team. I started supporting Australia a lot more and eventually, after that, it was just Australia, Australia, Australia."

He, however, added that members of the Pakistani and Indian communities told him he would never make the Australian team.

"They're like, 'Oh yeah, you're good but you'll never play for Australia because they don't pick our kind, they don't pick brown people to play for Australia, there's too much racism. You'll never get there.'"

However, Khawaja proved them wrong. He went on to become the first Pakistan-born person to play Test cricket for Australia and the first Muslim to represent the country in Test cricket.

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