Travis Head defines another day of Ashes cricket
You might have heard the whispers about Travis Head. He doesn't like it up at him. India's fast bowlers worked that out at The Oval, when Head was making a match-defining 163 against them in the World Test Championship final. A few weeks later, on the other side of the River Thames, England's bowlers tried to prove the same.
Just after six o'clock, Ben Stokes set a short-ball field, with catchers back on the leg side, and threw the ball to Josh Tongue. Tongue was the point-of-difference bowler in his otherwise samey attack of right-arm, medium-fast bowlers, and the man tasked with testing out Head's apparent vulnerability against the quick and nasty stuff.
Tongue banged his first ball into the pitch, halfway down and wide outside off stump. Head didn't flinch. He stood tall, lifting his feet off the ground a touch as he flat-batted through straight mid-on, tantalisingly out of Stuart Broad's reach as he wearily gave chase.
Four balls later, Head anticipated another short ball. He shuffled outside his leg stump to give himself room to free his arms, and took on the men in the deep on the hook. This time, he cracked Tongue away for four over Stokes' head at deep backward square leg. Head had walked out at No. 5 with Steven Smith unbeaten on 43. Now, both batters were on 71.
Stokes applauded, as if to suggest that it was a matter of time before England's ploy worked. It never did: instead, he fell to Joe Root's offspin shortly after. In total, England's seamers bowled Head a dozen short balls; he scored 21 runs off them, including four boundaries. It was hard graft, for no obvious reward.
England only went short to Head in the second half of his innings, after their more orthodox plans hadn't worked. He thrived on any width, playing his trademark half-punch, half-cut where he combines fast hands and whippy wrists to slap through the off side; when they went straight, he flicked nonchalantly off his pads.
They have been dreading the prospect of bowling to him again ever since he finished the reverse series as the leading run-scorer on either side - despite missing the Sydney Test through Covid. At the start of this summer, Stokes described him as "so hard to bowl to" and "really hard to set fields to".
Head is Australia's werewolf. He is a different beast once evening descends. Since his return to Australia's Test team ahead of the 2021-22 Ashes, he has scored just under half (46.7%) of his runs in the final session. There is no batter in the world who thrives more against flagging bowlers.
That might sound like damning him with faint praise but consider this: there is no batter in the world that has scored more runs in a certain session than Head in the third since his recall 19 months ago. He has averaged 89.37 in the third session, and struck at 93.70.
"Trav is Trav," David Warner said at the close. "It's the way he plays. It's exciting. He's going to come out there and to be honest, we're lucky he's in our team because he can take it away from you in that half an hour patch. Striking at over 100 on that wicket is exceptional - and that's what you get from Trav."
Head has been a revelation since coming back into the Australia side, liberated to play like he did in Sheffield Shield cricket for South Australia. In his first 31 innings as a Test batter, Head averaged 39.75 and struck at 49.65; after a year's gap, he has played another 31 since, averaging 54.71 and striking at 82.45.
On the morning of his career-reviving hundred at the Gabba at the start of the last Ashes series, Head bumped into Adam Gilchrist, who was working as a broadcaster. "He said, 'If you get the chance, fight fire with fire. Play your way,'" Head recounted in a recent Telegraph interview. There is, undeniably, a shade of Gilchrist in his style.
"He applies the pressure back onto the bowling unit," Warner added. "I felt they bowled pretty good to him first up. The ball was moving a little bit and then he countered. He just manages to hit them through backward point or get on top of the ball that's rising off the wicket. He just finds a way."
Head was out for 77 off 73 balls while falling on his backside. He charged down the pitch to swing Root back over his head into the Pavilion, and toppled over as Jonny Bairstow whipped the bails off. It was a comedy dismissal - but by that stage, England weren't laughing.
In all probability, Smith will convert his 85 not out into a 32nd Test and 12th Ashes hundred on Thursday morning; in years to come, it will be his innings that stands out on this scorecard. But make no mistake: this was a day of Ashes cricket defined by Travis Head. Another one.