Aussie cricket player Usman Khawaja has shared the amusing backstory of his harsh nickname, which is applied to teammate Mitch Marsh.
Although Khawaja, 37, and Marsh, 32, had played numerous Test matches together for Australia, the gritty opening batsman was taken aback when he heard the all-rounder called "Titta" rather than his more well-known moniker, "Bison."
“I used to bat [in the Sheffield Shield] against Western Australia and Bison [Marsh] would be bowling at me,” Khawaja told Backchat in a clip uploaded to TikTok.
“All his teammates would be saying, "Come on, Titta." I was like, why are they calling Bison that?”
After that, a video of Marsh bowling with his chest jiggling was shown, and Khawaja responded to the query.
“He has tried to hide it [... he even wears sports bras and GPS monitors when we are training in the nets. Then one day he was running in and I saw boing, boing, boing [his chest]. And I was like, ahhhh that is why they call him Titta.”
Although Marsh used to divide opinions among cricket fans, he is currently an important member of Australia's T20 captaincy and Test XI.
On June 2, when the T20 World Cup gets underway with tournament matches taking place in the US and the Caribbean, he will try to lead Australia to more silverware.
In a warm-up match between the two countries in Trinidad on Friday, the West Indies thrashed 257 from 20 overs, showing how badly the Australian bowlers performed.
Star batter Travis Head is the player whom cricket veteran Ricky Ponting has picked to lead the T20 World Cup in runs scored.
“I just think everything he's done, whether it be red-ball or white-ball in the last couple of years, has been of the highest quality,” he said. “He is playing fearless cricket at the moment.”