The advantage of a weapons-grade pace attack like Australia’s is its ability to bring about quick wickets.
Which is handy, except when these quick wickets force us to watch our listless top six bat earlier than expected.
Prior to the encouraging signs of Adelaide, Australia’s fragility with the bat has been so traumatising in recent times that we’d prefer the opposition keep us in the field at 3-869 just so we can avoid seeing another flat pitch transform in to a snake pit the moment our openers take guard.
But never fear, because these routine top-order collapses are now a good thing. Why?
Because every frenzied fall brings us closer to Travis Head.
Once pigeonholed by critics as a white-ball specialist, Head’s destructive behaviour is now thriving inside the antique shop of the Test arena – and the mess he creates has become appointment viewing.
Whether it’s his bold strokeplay or ability to wrest control of a match in Gilchristian manner, Head has come a long way from the days when he was just a funny surname for bawdy jokes.
Despite establishing himself as a Baggy Green mainstay, there is one uneasy facet to his rise – and it’s almost unconstitutional.
Even though it grates against every flannel-laden brylcreemed principle about Test batting this nation has relied upon, the freewheeling Croweater is now our most reliable batter in Test cricket.
Yep, Australia is wholly reliant on a see-ball hit-ball cowboy, and it feels like the nation’s fortunes are entirely invested on crypto.
If you’re still coming to terms with our Test team having a bowling captain and numbers on their shirts, then what about a foundation stone who’s batting at five, striking at 110, and even more weirdly, South Australian?
Travis Head celebrates after scoring a century. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Somewhere along the line, Head’s unconventional method has become the cement in Australia’s batting.
This is partly down to his terrific form, but also because he’s surrounded by creamified yoke.
Usman Khawaja appears like he’s batting with a frozen chicken, Marnus Labuschagne has just rediscovered his hands after two years gripping with cymbals, and while we once celebrated Steve Smith’s unorthodoxy, we need to draw the line when it involves continually edging balls down the leg side.
This erosion has left Australia with a new rock who is nothing like his predecessors.
Can this nation handle a saviour who doesn’t bat in the top four, nor renowned for tight tekkers, judicious strokeplay and the ability to block up an end like a mouthful of Imodium?
When you think of blokes you’d want to ‘bat for your life’, you think of Alan Border, Steve Waugh, Mike Hussey, and anyone else with an average as abundant as their paranoia.
Think technicians with disciplined shape, a high front elbow and an appetite for wearing more shots to the ribs than Happy Gilmore in the batting cage.
However, think of Head saving the joint, and you get frissons and cognitive dissonance.
This is a cavalier pirate who’ll safely guide us through to stumps, but he’ll also only take one sighter – and even then he’ll still attempt to clear the front leg.
Head’s new reputation is impressive considering he initially earned a Baggy Green merely by crushing a few hundreds in Australia’s premier shop window for Test selection, the BBL.
Seemingly marooned between identities in his early years, there was an unthinkable time he was dropped twice and even had his Cricket Australia contract pulled.
Since being recalled after his last axing in 2020-21, he has become indispensable by reinventing himself as some kinda kaleidoscopic Boonie.
His sensational knock in the second Test was vintage Head 2.0, an innings of hubristic hitting bow-tied with his clap back at Mohammad Siraj for a tone-deaf send-off that was like smashing the alarm on the 17th snooze.
For the record, it was the 51-gamer’s third century at his home ground, his first before his newborn son, and third against his other 11 sons on the field in blue caps.
Travis Head celebrates his century during the World Cup final. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
Yep, the 30-year-old has made a habit of scattering India’s brains as much as their fields in recent years, adding this daddy ton alongside his 163 off 174 balls in the World Test Championship final and his match winning 137 in the recent World Cup final.
But now the big question is this:
With Head anointed as Australia’s most reliable batter, how do we maintain his stability?
Easy.
By shifting him higher up the order and burdening him with the captaincy.
Head is the obvious candidate to take over once Pat Cummins retires, meaning Australia will need to acclimatise again.
But before we instill him as our shoot-from-the-hip Trump in whites, let’s just come to terms with the nation’s health hinging on a kamikaze at five.
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