Australia’s Head-start changes emphasis and puts India to the sword

T est it out quietly to yourself, because it is not yet a fully formed idea. One to be rolled over the tongue to see how it goes before it is released. But maybe, at least at this moment, Travis Head is Australia’s most important Test batter.

This is not an idea born of his run-a-ball century in the World Test Championship final, when he took Australia from precarity to primacy against India at the Oval. It was when that century was still just a threat, on 28 from 18 balls shortly after Marnus Labuschagne had been clean bowled by Mohammed Shami.

Australia’s batting order before Head is stacked with credentials. David Warner did his job as an opener, surviving a fierce early spell from Shami and Mohammed Siraj as the ball swerved under clouds, getting through to near lunch and giving those who followed a better chance. Usman Khawaja did his job in a way, given that openers have to accept the greater likelihood of an early edge.

Labuschagne did a job in sticking it out until his first ball after lunch, his score of 26 useful in the time it absorbed and the partnership it aided. Steve Smith then picked up where he left off in England in 2019, shifting across his crease before defending pointedly or collecting runs to the leg side, ending the day unbeaten on 95.

All are fine operators, and yet none creates that particular feeling that a Travis Head innings can do: a suggestion that anything and everything is possible in the session to come. At 76 for three after a couple of hours of graft having been sent in to bat, Australia could easily have been heading for 120 for six and towards first-innings oblivion. Instead, half an hour of Head changed everything.

It is the lack of hesitation in his game that engenders hesitation