Finch have some wrong call on the batting line up in my opinion. Khawaja was playing at 3, but today he was called at 4. I don't see any reason to call Smith in his place. Khawaja has a good performance in his last matches. However, I think Finch called Smith at 3 for having a faster score, if so, then calling Khawaja at 4 was also a wrong call.
Somehow Khawaja doesn't strike me as an ODI batsman, have seen him many times, even he makes 100. his strike rate is terrible. I considered him as a Test Batsman, and in a shorter format he doesn't make quick runs, opposition team now know that he struggles with short pitch bouncer even in Batting friendly wickets, actually short pitch bouncer rattles him, the same thing happened in the match against Windies and similar story against India.
Well, if for this reason he wasn't sent at 3, by anyhow he wouldn't be called at 4 as well. That's what I exactly mentioned. I'm not agreed with you though, a slower but longer start at the opening can help a team much better than a short faster start.
I didn't deny your point I just pointed out that Khawaja is not very ODI type material
My point is, Dude is slow.
IMHO his place in this squad justified at only one scenario when he's batting as an opener. Then he can take his time to build the inning. But team management can't fit him in top order because of Warner-Finch and rightly so. We should never forget that he secured his position in World cup squad as an opener, not 1st down or middle order batsman.
Ist down position should belong to best batsman in the squad, who can stay at the crease longer with his technical sound ability and can make runs fast as well when the situation demands. Khawaja ticks on Technical sound batsman but making runs fast, Nope.
I am very much aware of his stats, so it would be foolish to call him bad batsman I am just saying he's slow. Sometimes slow batsman can come very handy when wickets are falling from another end like dominos.
