Usman Khawaja is a patient man.
He attributes that to his Islamic faith, lack of power as batsman growing up and the long rollercoaster ride that has been his Test career.
But even he had to urge himself to be more patient in Australia's thrilling two-wicket win over England in the first Ashes Test.
The star of the show after his first-innings 141, Khawaja provided the bones for Australia's chase of 281 with his 65 in the second innings before the Pat Cummins heroics.
In doing so, the 36-year-old was the antithesis of England's Bazball approach in Birmingham.
While Joe Root played reverse-scoops in his first-innings hundred, Khawaja spent more than 10 hours at the crease across both innings fending and leaving balls while nurdling singles.
He faced 518 delivers in total, the most of any Australian in a match this century.
And as in as he felt in the second innings, Khawaja urged with himself the need to bat longer. To go slow and take the match deep on day five.
"If it was purely individual, I would have gone a lot harder early," Khawaja said.
"Mid off was up for the spinner, I could have gone over the top, I could have reverse-swept, I could have played sweeps,
"I could have played more cut shots, slashing shots if I wanted to. But I just thought it wasn’t worth it.
“Little Uzzie inside of me was saying ‘you can expand now, you can get into second or third gear now’ but I was like ‘no, no, take it deep, take it as far deep as you can’.
“I genuinely thought the only way we were going to win this game, it was going to be in the last hour and I needed to go as deep as I can."
Khawaja is the first to admit he found England's approach entertaining.
But he is more comfortable than ever now to do it his own way, rather than get lured into someone else's.
Since earning a recall in January 2022 after believing his career was over, Khawaja has scored seven centuries and managed his maiden tons in Asia and England.
His record as an opener is now the best in history for any player with 20 innings at the top, averaging 66.87.
All doing it his way.
“As a youngster I had to bat a long time to score runs," Khawaja said.
"I was little, I didn’t have too many shots, so I learnt how to bat a long time from a young age.
“I did bat a long time today and I’ve done that before but I’m like any batsmen, I like to score runs, so today was a bit of a mind tussle for me."
