It gives a sense that Team India gets nervous around Travis Head. The latter has ways to score against India in the most difficult of situations, and ensures that the opponents pay a heavy price. At last year’s WTC final — IND vs AUS — he scored 163 in the first innings, to rule out India of the match. Head’s good form vs India continued in the World Cup final as well, where he scored 137 from 120, at a time, when his team was reeling at 47/3.
Travis Head Rocks India, For Their Fault
And the latest is his exploits in the IND vs AUS Test series, where he scored match-winning 140 from 141 deliveries in Adelaide. This was on the back of a brilliant 89 in the Perth Test as well. So, it is not only like, he loves to bat against Team India, but our bowlers have also failed to target him against the short-bowling, a visible weakness for him.
After his innings, former India bowler Harbhajan Singh lamented the fact, that the likes of Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah and Harshit Rana only had four well-directed bouncers against him. That, when he struggled against the English team in last Ashes, where he was found wanting against the short-ball. In the 10 innings there, he had 362 runs to his name, at an average of 36.
Mohammed Siraj Fails Against Aussie
In the IND vs AUS series this year, he already has scored 240 runs at an average of 80, with the next best batsman behind him being Yashasvi Jaiswal at 185. A video compiled by 7Cricket shows, just how easily the batter went about his business. There were a lot of deliveries by Bumrah and Siraj that were on the pads, and Head negotiated them well. For the ones marginally outside off, he rocked by a bit and got his scoring shots.
Ashwin looked flat and wasn’t given a chance by the batter, to settle into a good line and length. In fact, expect for that missed catch opportunity the Aussie did not put a foot wrong. “There were only four well-directed bouncers by Indian bowlers in Travis Head’s innings of 140 runs. No bowler has blocked his offside area and targeted his body. Forget about the video analyst; the players can see the videos,” Bhajji had said.
So, the Indian team has the solution in front of them. It is just the question of implementing it now. Lastly, it would only have been better, if Mohammed Siraj had shown the same aggression while bowling to Head; that he showed after dismissing him, post the damage was done.
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