Adelaide: Contemplating India a few days out from the start of his home Test match, Travis Head summed up the early sparring in Perth with these words.
“They’ve got a first look at me, I’ve got a first look at them and the fun starts now.”
For more than 50,000 spectators at Adelaide Oval on a balmy Saturday evening, nothing could possibly have been more fun than watching Head take his cutlass to the Indian attack after the Australian top order had set him a sturdy platform on the first evening.
Travis Head walks off Adelaide Oval after his blistering ton against India.Credit: AP
There was also plenty of sport in how Head took on Mohammed Siraj, the find of India’s previous tour, who has been spoiling for a fight in this Test. He had a sharp exchange of words with Head after a yorker ended the left-hander’s innings for a punishing 140 from 141 balls.
A Head century in Adelaide is now becoming a tradition – this being the third summer in a row in which he has chalked up three figures. But two hundreds against the West Indies over the past two seasons were small beer next to this effort against India, in a game Australia simply must win to stay alive in the Border-Gavaskar series.
What was clear to most spectators in Adelaide from the moment the Australian innings began was how critical it was to give Head a chance to come in after the ball had lost some of its shine.
Something lost a little in the debate about the opening position this year – which Head pointedly refused to get involved in – was how he has steadily become the most destructive batter in the side. Head is now an elemental force in international cricket around which Australia’s batting order is constructed.
Where once it was Steve Smith, and then Marnus Labuschagne, who led the line from three or four, now it is Head who terminates bowling attacks with extreme prejudice. The struggles of Smith (glancing Bumrah down the leg side) and Usman Khawaja so far this series underline how Head, at 30, is at his peak.
“They’re both very good players – they have been for a long period of time, and in particular Uzzy has been for the last couple of years,” Simon Katich said of the older duo on SEN.
“But when you come up against an attack like this at this stage of their careers – Smith is 35 and Khawaja’s going to be 38 in December – [in] Test cricket, historically the numbers don’t help when you get to that age. Test cricket’s hard at the best of times, let alone when you start to get to that point of 35-plus.”
Head’s output has diminished somewhat over the past year, but there was a definite tilt back towards the sight of Head on the attack in the final innings of the Perth Test, and he was able to carry that with him to Adelaide.
Head and Mohammed Siraj exchanged words after the South Australian was dismissed.Credit: Getty Images
After being beaten second ball by Bumrah, Head punched his third through the covers – a sign of much that was to follow.
Head had noted how, in bouncy conditions with a Kookaburra ball promising seam, India were more inclined to attack him in an orthodox manner, after numerous teams have had success tucking him up with the short ball. After the England tour of last year, Head quipped that, “If I bring anything home from this series, it’ll be a hook shot”.
But the appearance of the seaming and swerving pink ball in Adelaide seemed to set captain Rohit Sharma on the irrevocable path of trying to beat Head with full or length deliveries. On the way to three figures, Head faced just four legitimate bouncers, per CricViz.
It will never be known whether Jasprit Bumrah would have taken a different tack if still captain here, but it is not the first time India have found themselves being carved up while trying to find Head’s outside edge.
For a long time, Ravichandran Ashwin looked the most likely to find a way past Head, and on 70 he coaxed a genuine chance that Siraj missed as he ran back from mid-on. Even so, Head still forced his way into that contest with several telling blows, clearing the rope down the ground.
To emphasise the value of Head’s attacking play, his 140 runs were a huge majority of the 207 scored in total while he was out there. Motoring nicely at 63 from 85 balls, Head took off as dusk loomed, scooping 77 runs from the final 56 deliveries he faced.
Labuschagne and Carey provided sound support in 50 stands. But the player Head would perhaps have thought most fondly about in the rearview mirror of his century was Nathan McSweeney, who in his second Test absorbed 109 balls to smooth a pathway.
“Every team in the world would love that – that’s what everyone is striving for,” Head said of such platforms this week.
“That’s been cricket forever, having guys at the top who build a platform and then you go from there, and when you play at your best that’s what’s happening. We’ve still got the guys there to do the job, and hopefully that is the case.”
There were more than a few hostile moments on the field during Head’s innings, as India reckoned with the fact that he was taking the game well away from them while buying time for his bowlers to use the pink ball in the night air.
But there are few words spoken on the cricket field that can be as devastating as the Travis Head bat swing, as much of a nightmare for opposition bowlers as it was a dream fulfilled for another bounteous Adelaide crowd.
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