Did You Know: Usman Khawaja's Wife Rachel Converted To Islam To Marry Love Of Her Life

Usman Khawaja struck a gritty ton on the second day of the first Ashes Test to ensure Australia remained in contention to win the match. His is married to Rachel, who converted to Islam in 2017 to marry him.

Source: Twitter

Usman Khawaja turned out to be the hero for Australia on Day 2 of the first Ashes Test going on at Edgbaston. The Pakistan-born Khawaja is one the Test specialists in the Australian team and unlike England, who played Bazball on first day of the match, Khawaja went at a strike rate of 45.16. Khawaja finished the day unbeaten on 126 off 279 deliveries which included 14 fours and 2 sixes respectively. Fair to say it was a typical Test match innings where a batter took his time and showed a great amount of patience to strike a brilliant century.

Australia will want Khawaja to go on and on on the first day as well. Along side him is Alex Carey, who is playing well on 52 off 80 balls. For England, Stuart Broad, Moeen Ali picked up two wickets each while Ben Stokes got one wicket against his name. England had made a shocking declaration on 393 for 8 on Day 1 and they will need to bowl well from here to win this Test. 

Khawaja is married to Rachel

Khawaja is married to Rachel and the couple are also blessed with two baby girls - Aisha and Ayla. Khawaja's eldest daughter Aisha accompanied him to the press conference at the end of Day 2. Khawaja told the journalists present in the media room that his daughter did not want to leave him after he was done with batting.

Rachel, his wife, converted to Islam in 2017. As per Dailymail.uk, they got married as per Islamic marriage ceremony called nikah in 2017. The couple had got engaged in 2016, a year before. But Khawaja and Rachel married each other, on paper, only in April 2018. 

She was quoted saying on dailymail.co.uk: "We got his family (from Sydney) and my family came and we had an intimate ceremony with ther Imam- so technically we have married for almost two years now." She said this in 2019. In another interview, Usman had stated that there was no pressure on Rachel to convert to Islam and that she did it by her choice.