Travis Head has two young kids but is also the daddy to no less than 1.429 billion people. The Australian left-hander owns India after again sending their bowlers to all points of the field in a blazing century.
As he did in the World Test Championship final, the ODI World Cup decider last year and last week’s match in Adelaide, the 30-year-old had India in the palm of his hand in his majestic 152 as the Aussies reached 7-405 on day two of the third Test at the Gabba.
With vice-captain Steve Smith ending his drought of 24 innings without a ton in his 101, Australia are in the box seat to go 1-0 up in the series unless Brisbane’s forecast of wet weather washes away their advantage.
Head and Smith combined for a 241-run fourth-wicket stand after the top order again failed, rescuing the home side from a precarious 3-75 after resuming at 0-28 following the rain-ruined opening day.
Travis Head. (Photo by Matt Roberts – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
Travis heading towards captaincy
Head is the current star of the Australian batting line-up and is all but certain to be the next captain unless his form falls off a cliff in the next couple of years.
It wouldn’t be a bad move to make him vice-captain soon as part of a succession plan as Pat Cummins moves into the later stages of his career.
Head will also likely end up at No.4 in the order but Smith also has that role for the timebeing.
It looked like they were playing on different wickets during their monumental partnership in Brisbane.
Head, in fluent form, produced ramps, blistering drives and thunderous horizontal bat shots off the back foot which hurtled to the boundary.
He hit six fours on his way to his half-century off 71 balls and then belted another seven while needing just 44 more deliveries to ton up.
Smith scratched around in a battle for survival early and he needed 128 deliveries to reach 50 and his hundred came up off 185 all up.
Head’s ninth Test ton was his third against India – his average of 52.71 in 13 matches against them is more than 10 runs higher than his 41.66 against the other teams he’s encountered in his 52-match career.
In the end it took a combination of Jasprit Bumrah’s relentless effort and the second new ball to bring his Brisbane brilliance to an end from the 160th ball he faced.
Smith’s crispness eludes him but ton ends famine
Smith silenced the growing murmurings about his form and suggestions that his glittering career was about to come to a shuddering halt.
It was far from the best of his 33 Test centuries but one of the most important on an individual level.
The 35-year-old had not registered triple figures since the second Test of last year’s Ashes series at Lord’s and the 24 innings without a century was the longest drought of his career, dropping him out of the ICC’s top 10 batter rankings for the first time in a decade.
With the four-Test opener experiment permanently scrubbed off the drawing board, a couple of low scores at Sheffield Shield level then a golden duck, 17 and two from the first couple of matches against India added up to pressure on the all-time great.
Smith again tinkered with his stance and guard but it’s becoming like Shane Warne’s mystery ball – every summer he claims there’s something new on the horizon and not much changes.
He still steps across his stumps to access his favourite leg-side target areas but as he’s got older, he is no longer automatically clipping the ball off his pads and too often in the past couple of years he has been bowled or trapped in front.
There was an overwhelming air of relief when Smith tucked Akash Deep into the deep at fine leg for a single to bring up his milestone.
When he departed a short time later it was noticeable that Smith was disappointed but not as devastated as he normally gets, even after posting a big score. He knew how important it was for him to get the nasty hacks in the media off his back and show that he is not a spent force.
He needs another eight tons to equal Ricky Ponting’s mark of 41 and if Smith can keep soldiering on for another couple of years, claiming the Australian record is not beyond him.
The next landmark on the horizon is becoming the 15th player in history, and the fourth Australian, to hit 10,000 Test runs, needing 195 more to join that exclusive club.
Steve Smith celebrates his century at the Gabba. (Photo by Albert Perez – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images)
Top order topples over again
Head and Smith’s stand has taken the spotlight off Australia’s top order troubles after Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney and Marnus Labuschagne fell cheaply.
Khawaja’s 21 was his highest score of the series but he now has just 55 runs at 13.75 after nicking Bumrah to Rohit Sharma.
McSweeney has fallen to Bumrah in four times in five innings, save for the brief second innings in Adelaide when they were chasing a target of 19, in registering 68 runs at 17.
He is getting a thorough working over in his introduction to Test cricket but the selectors have to weigh up whether it is making him stronger in the long run or whether he needs to be subbed out for a more experienced opener to avoid the world’s best bowler ruining his career in its infancy.
Labuschagne showed great signs in Adelaide with his 64 but after he also edged to Virat Kohli at second slip, this time off Nitish Kumar Reddy, he’s only managed 81 runs at 20.25 with the lion’s share coming from his half-century.
Head looks a little like 1980s Allan Border with his moustache and similar stature but he can’t keep rescuing the top order like AB did back in the day.
Mitchell Marsh didn’t last long, snicking Bumrah for five, but Alex Carey rubbed India’s nose in the dirt late in the day with a quick-fire 45 off 47 balls, including a booming six over midwicket off Ravindra Jadeja.
Cummins chimed in with 20 in a 58-run stand with Carey, who will resume with Mitchell Starc (seven) on day three looking for quick runs to give the hosts enough time to bowl out India twice with a chance this Test could be shortened further by rain.
Rohit tosses away advantage
Sharma won’t enter Nasser Hussain territory for making the wrong call at the toss in Brisbane but he made the wrong call to send the Aussies in on day one.
Yes, the pitch looked conducive to fast bowling and anyone with Bumrah in their line-up would be keen to unleash him as soon as possible.
But the decision was more a sign of a lack of faith in his own batting line-up after their first innings failures of 150 and 180 in Perth and Adelaide.
As skipper he should have been leading from the front – promoting himself back to opener and taking on the local new-ball attack.
At least Australia’s tally was not as bad as 22 years ago at the same venue when Hussain famously elected to field and Australia obliterated England to be 2-364 at stumps to set up a 384-run flogging.
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