Travis Headache for India: Adelaide man’s ton leaves India on the brink in second BGT Test | Cricket News

A couple of weeks back, Mohammad Siraj contacted former India bowling coach Bharat Arun with one specific request: to share tips to cut the ball away from a left-handed batsman from round the stumps.His request was to nail Travis Head. Before the start of play on Saturday, with two right-handed batsmen batting overnight, R Ashwin had a long bowl at the pitch adjacent to the main pitch as part of warm-ups. It was all from round the stumps and the ball would slide in from outside off as if he were bowling to a left-hander.
It seemed the Indians were more than aware that their main nemesis on the day, and possibly of this series, is Travis Head.
Their hunch proved right as Head smashed 140 to propel Australia to 337 and hand a 157-run first-innings lead. And the Australian bowlers ran through the top order to leave India gasping at 128/5, trailing 29 runs.

https://t.co/ZfgA7Jl7oe
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 7, 2024
The home crowd of course knew the main man was Head. As he walked out to bat, he received the loudest cheer that any Australian batsman got. If any Indian bowler messed around with him with stares or the lip, as Mohammad Siraj would after eventually getting his wicket with a yorker, they would boo them, loud and long. Especially the crowd standing at the ‘Hill’, the grass-bank area just in front of the old scoreboard, the least-expensive ticketed section of the stadium.
Head has the reputation of an ‘everyday bloke’ in this country. Never mind he recently bought a house that’s worth three million dollars, it’s his persona that makes him rather appealing to the Australian fans. A moustache out of 80s Australia, a batsman who had to struggle to get a spot in the team and work harder to retain it, someone who looks like one of the blokes; no gym-sculpted body or a posh demeanour and airs about him — just a regular Aussie bloke, as they call him.
He might be loved the home fans, but it must be annoying to bowl to him.
Unleashing mayhem
Head retreats to almost one spot, around the leg and middle, on the back foot primarily, crunching himself into that area as if he were travelling in a packed unreserved compartment of an Indian train and there is no space elsewhere. But he unleashes such mayhem from there, slashing, carving, stabbing, punching.
He might not be a classical batsman, but he is a batsman with a very specific and conscious method. stationing himself there, he casts this illusionary spell on the bowlers, dragging them into his space. A ball on off stump that can cramp up most batsmen appears as width to him. Even Jasprit Bumrah was snared it, occasionally thinking he could hit that off stump, but would wince as Head, without foot movement of the conventional kind but maintaining balance and springing up with his knee flex, would slash him through backward point. The hands just fly.
Then there is the other effect as Siraj would do. Seeing him in that space, the logical thought is to hurl something really full – fuller than the lengths to other batsmen. And Head would rapidly get forward to absolutely cream it through the off side.
It also came through in the way he handled Ashwin. The Indian offspinner’s main weapon on a windy Adelaide day was to use the breeze and drift the ball in. Often releasing the ball from between his thumb and fore-finger, he would get the ball to skid in from outside off or around off. Time and again, Head would press back to push it away. And suddenly, he would lurch forward to blast a fuller-length ball. Or charge down the track to crash-land them into the stands. But all this free-flowing attack essentially comes from that backing movement.

That’s for ba Harrison!
Another home-town ton for Travis Head! #AUSvIND | #PlayOfTheDay | @nrmainsurance pic.twitter.com/u4s6nV62RZ
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 7, 2024
For all his whacking the ball around, Head is a batsman who needs and trusts that method. Anytime he deviates from it, he admonishes himself. He doesn’t do it when he misses an attempted cut to what appears to be a full-length ball; he isn’t worried as that’s what he wanted to do. But if he has a flash at a ball that his method isn’t suited for, he can be seen muttering.
In the days leading up to the Perth Test, he had batted for hours, in multiple sessions each day, at the nets, leading to quizzical looks from the Australian journals who generally see him at nets only when he wants to polish some part of his game. It didn’t come off in the first innings there as Harshit Rana produced a beauty that shaped away ever so late from round the stumps and rattled the off stump.
Head was particularly severe on Rana at Adelaide. Served a stream of balls that was like meat to his method, he cut, drove and pulled. What’s not short to other batsmen is short to him, because of the position he gets into. And Rana couldn’t adjust on the day and bled runs.
Once he reached the hundred, the trademark helmet-over-the-bat-handle celebration came out, and he soaked in the moment, turning to all parts of the ground. And then began his next onslaught with a tweak. Where previously he would punch, he began extending his arm to go up and over with his shots – be it Bumrah or Siraj.

The end of a sensational innings! 🗣️#AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/kEIlHmgNwT
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) December 7, 2024
There was one astonishing six off Siraj, a ball before he was dismissed. It was a fairly good delivery, on the middle and leg from a good length, in an attempt to cramp him for room, but he somehow whipped it up and over the square-leg boundary. Siraj stood there, hand over his mouth, musing and staring.
The next ball was a yorker that dipped under the blade to hit the stumps, and Siraj screamed in celebration. Head had a look, and as Siraj kept screaming in joy, he said something to the bowler. Siraj mouthed something angrily, pointing to the dressing room.

The crowd cottoned on to the moment and began booing Siraj, who had to field near the boundary after an over, and smilingly egged them on, extending his arms and waving them up and down. The Indian section clapped in joy, the Australian sections booed more. It was a minor event compared to the main box-office show of the day: Head slaying the Indians.