Travis Head gives Perth a reason to remember a two-day Test match

ICC World Test Championship

"Batting orders are overrated". This was a statement given by the Aussie red-ball captain Pat Cummins a few days back. Cummins was not part of the XI that played at Perth against their rivals England on a nightmarish Optus Stadium pitch. However, he saw his statement come true 'by chance' in a span of two days when Travis Head smoked the English bowlers all around the park with such disdain in the fourth innings to give his team an eight wicket win.

A match that lasted only 847 balls and saw 32 wickets fall within six sessions had only one 50+ score in the first three innings until Australia were forced to shuffle their opening pair due to a niggle Usman Khawaja picked up in the match. Khawaja also did not open in the first innings when Labuschagne partnered the debutant Jake Weatherald. 

After opting to bat first on a pacy, uneven pitch England saw the wrath of steamy Mitchell Starc, the first left arm pacer to complete 100 Ashes wickets. With both Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood ruled out of the first Test, Starc explicitly mentioned that he was willin to take more responsibility as the senior most pacer of the attack. And he proved his truth in his statement when he ran through the whole English batting line-up as he picked up his best bowling figures of 7-58 rolling over the opponents for 172 in the first innings.

Only a few fans who have watched Mitchell Starc from his starting days would know the importance he holds in this hugely successful bowling quartet. He recently completed 100 Test matches and 400 wickets in the last Test match and he was at his best with the ball for his nation at Perth. Not quite like the Rory Burns first baller in the last Ashes Downunder but he did end up getting Zak Crawley in the first over, of both innings, for a pair. And what followed was nothing short of a storm as he went on to pick three wickets in his first spell including Joe Root for a seven ball duck. In fact, of the 10 wickets (the fastest 10-fer in Test cricket) he took in the match, he got Crawley, Root and Stokes out both times with some beauties.

Mitchell Starc completes an excellent return catch offered by Zak Crawley

And while Starc enjoyed his day out in the first innings, the English had their own intensity up. After Brook's boundary-laden 52, Jofra Archer got the debutant Weatherald second ball for a duck as both him and Carse cracked up the pace and the lift they got from the pitch to leave Australia in trouble at 31-4 which was soon followed by a second fifer in as many games for their charismatic captain Ben Stokes. 19 wickets fell on the first day. 

The English batters were always expected to falter on these spicy Australian wickets with the way they play on placid decks in England. Oh how the tables have turned in these two countries over the last four year!!. Their Bazball approach is bound to fail on any challenging wicket with the way their batters approach their game. But the bowlers did manage to give them a crucial 40-run lead. If the batters would have shown some application, they would have easily pushed the game towards England. But Scott Boland, who had another terrible outing against this Bazball led side in the first innings bounced back strongly. With the help of debutant Brendan Doggett, who had a very impressive outing taking 5 wickets in the match and the leader of the pack Mitchell Starc, who completed his third 10-fer they managed to fold England for 164 again.

On a pitch which had already seen 30 wickets in one and a half days, no one would have predicted the final result. It is a well-known truth that Travis Head is a marvelous talent. He showed England that last time twice, at Brisbane and in Hobart on very tough pace friendly wicket 2021. Oval 2023 and last Border-Gavaskar series against India followed. The Ahmedabad World Cup final special which stunned 1.4 billion cricket fans is another one. And to top all of that he has two 150+ ODI against England. These are all some extraordinary feats he has achieved in the last fours years only. Yet every time we see a Head special, it feels like this one is something different.

Travis Head powers Australia to a 8-wicket win over England in Perth

Travis Head likes to bully bowlers. He is not satisfied by dominating the opposition, he loved to shatter their confidence. When he walked out to open in the fourth innings at Optus yesterday, he might have already mapped out the shots he was going to play against each bowler in his mind. And he executed it with brute power and sublime timing. The English bowlers who had just one day back had the batters hopping up and down, did not realize what hit them. Head went on to score a hundred off just 69 balls, the fastest fourth innings century in Test cricket. A score of 123 out of a total of 205 off just 83 balls, Head has already set the tone for the upcoming games. He might put a mental dent on the opposition's mind already with a folklore that will be sung for the upcoming generation.

Captain Steve Smith did not commit to a regular opening role for the hero of the chase but this performance showed that if Head does decide to don the opening gloves in the future, he has all the tools to write another successful chapter. The English team on the other hand might want to re-group with the extra time they have on their hands before the day-night Test in Brisbane which starts on 04th December. With the incumbent return of both Cummins and Hazlewood, the task is only going to get tougher. One can only imagine how hard it is going to be for the batters in the upcoming games.

For now we celebrate the longevity of Mitchell Starc's skills and the extra-terrestrial ability of his teammate Travis Head wishing for more challenging games in this series. 

References : ESPNCricinfo, Statsguru by ESPNCricinfo