By Ian Ransom
(Reuters) – With another century opening for Australia, Travis Head is looking more and more likely to open the batting in the home test series against India.
Head blasted a match-winning, unbeaten 154 from 129 balls at Trent Bridge as world champions Australia stormed to a seven-wicket win over England in the first ODI on Thursday.
It was the highest score by an Australian in a bilateral ODI match in England, coming just over a week after he clobbered the English with a 19-ball half-century in the T20 opener.
It also came two weeks after Head set a powerplay record with the bat on the way to a 25-ball 80 in a T20 win over lowly Scotland.
Head’s development into an all-format dominator is timely for Australia given the retirement of opener David Warner, the last man to hold that role for the country.
Warner’s exit from international cricket left a huge vacuum in the test side that Steve Smith, for all his brilliance batting at number four, was unable to fill as an opener.
Smith scored an unbeaten 91 against West Indies but it was his only half-century in eight innings.
Head has batted in the middle order for most of his 49 tests and has provided good value since he returned to the side in late-2021 after being dropped for nearly a year.
However, he slotted in as opener during last year’s tour of India when Warner was injured.
He made a good fist of it in a losing cause, scoring an unbeaten 49 in Indore and 90 in Ahmedabad.
Australia coach Andrew McDonald has all but confirmed the top six batters who swept New Zealand 2-0 in the last tour will keep their places for the five-test home series against India.
However, the order may be tweaked, with plenty of calls for Smith to drop back to his proven number four slot.
Incumbent opener Usman Khawaja has little doubt who should join him at the top.
“I feel like Travis Head might be best suited,” he told Australian pay TV channel Fox Cricket last week.
“He’s obviously been very successful opening the batting in one-day cricket and, breaking it down, I’d probably lean towards him.
“The confidence transfers over.”
Head, however, declined to offer a shot when asked for his thoughts on the matter.
“Keep the chatter, it makes it interesting,” Head told reporters at Trent Bridge.
“I’m not going to dive into that. I’ll just let that play out.”
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
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