After being unceremoniously dropped for Australia's third Test against Sri Lanka, batsman Usman Khawaja claims he and opener Joe Burns were made scapegoats for the Test series disaster on the subcontinent.

Khawaja scored at will in Tests against New Zealand and the West Indies during the Australian summer, amassing 504 runs in just four Tests.

But after a less-than-impressive start on the subcontinent where he scored just 55 runs in four innings, Khawaja was dumped with the Test side in a tailspin. And he has no doubt that he and Burns were the fall guys for the 3-0 series defeat.

"It's a pretty big decision after just two Test matches," he said of the judgment to drop him. "It was disappointing that Joe Burns and I were sort of the scapegoats for not performing.