‘Side you don’t see’: Khawaja ‘quite emotional’ as he reveals the real David Warner

Usman Khawaja has given a stunning insight into the real David Warner, who he known since he was five years old ahead of their final Test together before he retires from international cricket.

Warner became emotional at his retirement press conference in speaking about his opening partner and Khawaja was visibly touched when he saw the footage in a Big Bash rain delay on Fox Cricket.

“It is quite special and quite emotional, I haven’t seen that,” Khawaja said on Fox Cricket.

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“You don’t see that side of Davey at all. Obviously he doesn’t show you that side when he is playing. He is a fierce competitor.

“You see the Bull and you see him go out there and play hard and I have known him for a long time and I know that side of him.

“Something I love about Davey and probably the thing I love about him the most is you see what he is like on the cricket field, but he is such a different person when he is back home and with his family.

“I have obviously known his parents Loraine and Howard for a long time and their family is good mates with my family.

“Playing together and being together for so long, the journey is bizarre and one part of that journey is coming to an end.

“He has stopped playing Test cricket and One Day Internationals and he put so much time and effort into it and there is so much heart, soul and tears that go into it.

“There is so many ups and downs and so much goes into it, I guess when you get to the realisation that it is coming to an end, especially being able to share that with a childhood friend. And now that we have our own kids it is weird when it comes full circle.

“You look back on it and you get quite emotional thinking about it because you just think, how lucky are we to do this? Not only to play for Australia, but then to do it together it’s quite special.”

Khawaja recalled his favourite memories with Warner as kids who dreamt of playing for Australia one day and noted he hasn’t changed a bit since then.

“We opened the bowling with our sweat bands,” Khawaja said.

“The first time I played Davey I was playing for Randwick Green and he was playing for Coastal. This was club cricket and we ended up playing for Coastal together later on.

“But we played against each other at under 7s. But I actually knew him before that because our brothers were the same age group and that’s how I met him.

“I met him at Waverly Oval in the Eastern Suburbs. We chucked the ball on the wall and we played classic catches and Davey being Davey he was an athlete and he was diving around everywhere and I was just at the back just cleaning up his mess.

“I was just there chucking the ball as hard as I could to make him dive and take all these speccies.

“Then we eventually started playing with each other and we played rep cricket all the way up to about 16.

“We used to open the bowling together. I batted three and he batted at four.

“Davey was an absolute menace. He was a terror as a kid honestly. One of the stories I bring up all the time that I love was we used to have tea time and he always gravitated towards the cherries.

“He is a smart man and he knows those cherries stain. So we would pick up a cherry and chuck it at other people and teammates and the mum’s would be blowing up at the end of the day because they couldn’t get these cherry stains off. It is impossible to get cherry stains off.

“But the way he plays now was the same as when he played back then. He was always attacking and positive and loved talking on the spinners and trying to hit them for six first ball.”

However, it is the side that so many of the public have never and maybe will never see that Khawaja believes defines Warner as a human being.

“He has that persona about him, he is a bit like Warnie, he is polarising,” Khawaja said.

“Like Warnie was and a lot of Australia loves Warnie. There was a lot of people I grew up with who didn’t like Warnie and there were people sitting on either side, very polarising.

“Davey is the same. He is very polarising. You either love him or you don’t. There is nothing really in the middle.

“But I have known Davey for so long since we were five or six years old.

“You can’t judge people from solely what happens on the field. You can’t judge people that you played against on the field.

“Unless you actually play with them and you are in that team and you get to know them, it is really hard to say, this is what this person is like because what happens on the field is so different to what people are like off the field.

“Off the field he is one of the most giving people I have ever met. He sits down with random people all the time and just chats to them like an everyday Aussie bloke.

“You would have no idea that he is a Test cricketer and one of the greats of the game.

“He is the first person I see whether it is family or friends, he is like what do you want? I will get it for you. What do you need? I will do this or that for you.

“If I was ever in trouble he would be one of the first people I would call because I know he would be the first one to answer and the first one to help me out.

“He is that kind of guy and that is the side you don’t see of him and he doesn’t show that to a lot of people, so people just see what they see on the field and make up their minds, which is fair enough.

“But you don’t know the real David Warner behind the scenes. He can be quite rough even off the field, but deep down inside there is a really good human in there.

“That’s the side you don’t see and unless you see him in a pub you will probably never see it.”