Australian batter Travis Head was surprisingly dropped from the playing XI in the first Test match against India at Nagpur, earlier in the year in the Border-Gavaskar trophy, despite him being the best Australian batter of the summer.
Ergo, his non-selection was baffling for former players like Steve Waugh, Mark Waugh, and Matthew Hayden. Head was included in the second Test match and after David Warner was ruled out, he opened the innings with Usman Khawaja and gave decent starts to the team.
In the World Test Championship final against India, Head walked out to bat with Australia in some sort of trouble at 76-3 after Marnus Labuschagne was dismissed by Mohammed Shami right after the Lunch break.
Head was able to hit the ground running as he took the attack against the Indian bowlers. The left-hander raced to 30 off just 22 balls and kept taking Indian bowlers to boundaries at regular intervals.
The attacking southpaw completed his first century outside Australia and also his first against India with a pull shot. This is also the first century in WTC Final by any player.
Head finished with an unbeaten 146 runs off only 156 balls with the help of 22 fours and one six to take Australia to a formidable score of 327-3 after stumps were drawn on the opening day.
Head said after the end of day’s play, “I think that gives you good perspective to moments like this and the lead-up and the prep to be as relaxed as you can. Hopefully, I don’t get dropped too much in the future but it’s going to inevitably happen, so it doesn’t bother me.”
Head added a gargantuan alliance of 251 runs off 370 balls with Steve Smith, who scored an unbeaten knock of 95 runs. The former Australian skipper played second fiddle and Head added it felt like Smith wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’ve always said that I do really enjoy batting with Steve because of how much attention he receives. I’ve always felt like and I’ve always said going out to bat with him it feels like you’re in the shadow of that and you can sort of sneak under the radar and go about your business because he’s drawn so much attention and it felt like that again today, it felt like he wasn’t going to go anywhere.
Australia is in a dominating position and a lot of credit goes to Head for his aggressive batting.
