Australia have defeated India in two finals in 2023. One was at the Oval in the World Test Championship final and the other one was at Ahmedabad in ODI World Cup final. In both instances, it was Travis Head who played the protagonist for the Kangaroos. The ton in London was a counter punch after a sedate start on Day 1 from the left-hander and the ton at the Narendra Modi Stadium was wait and watch initially and then change the gears kind of an inning.
“I don’t feel like they’re my favorite,” Head said speaking to Star Sports after receiving Player Of The Match for both his match-winning knocks. “I just feel like we play them enough, play them lots. And, I guess the last couple of years I’ve been in nice form. So yeah, being able to, to play well, it’s always nice.”
Not your orthodox attacking player
Head has scored 715 runs from 10 matches against India in Test match cricket and ODI cricket he amassed 345 runs from nine games. “They’re extremely difficult but it’s been nice to play well in a couple of games and looking forward to preparing well and being ready to go and let’s look, hope hopefully I can, I can contribute to what’s a successful summer for us,” the 30-year-old added.
He is an attacker, but not one reliant on blind power. He is more of glides and deflections, punches and slashes. The soul of his batting, he once said, is, “how I line the ball up, where I line the ball up and where I’m trying to play it.”
It’s a technique he honed while playing with his father Simon at the Tea Tree Gully CC in Gawler, a quaint town in South Australia. Even before he turned five, he was tagging along with his father and brother Ryan. “The boundaries were short, there was not much swing, or bounce, and that probably shaped my technique,” he would say.
