Travis Head and shoulders above the rest while the legend of Jasprit Bumrah keeps growing
If India have Jasprit Bumrah, Australia boast Travis Head. Bumrah has largely ploughed a lone furrow with the ball over the first two and quarter Tests, support only sporadic from Mohammed Siraj. Head has had greater contributions from others around him, and that has been the difference so far even though the series is level 1-1.
On Sunday, the second day of the third Test at the Gabba, the two champions were at it again. Bumrah perhaps had the tougher of the asks, having to operate with an older and unresponsive ball after the first 35 overs or so. Head only came on to bat midway through the 34th over after the top three of Usman Khawaja (54 balls), Nathan McSweeney (49) and Marnus Labuschagne (55) had done the dirty work, laying the foundation for the left-hander to do his thing.
Because Head comes in at No. 5, his face-offs with Bumrah haven’t been as fascinating as they would otherwise have been. If Australia were, say, 25 for three, it would be a different ballgame, one supposes. But by the time the in-form left-hander strode out this morning, all intent and aggression, the Indian lynchpin had already bowled 11 overs.
Steve Smith, one of two centurions in Australia’s tally of 405 for seven, alluded to how the dynamics of batting in Australia have changed over the last three years, since a change in the constitution of a Kookaburra and the laying out of livelier surfaces. The former captain held forth on the difficulties of batting for the first 35 overs, and the general easing up of the challenge thereafter, when the ball gets older but not softer, offering no movement for the bowlers while encouraging the batters to smack it hard. Like Head did.
Unstoppable Head
It will be unfair to refer to Head’s pyrotechnics as merely feasting on the buffet laid out by his predecessors in the batting order, even if that holds an element of truth. That said, Head has been unstoppable since his first-innings failure in Perth. Subsequent visits to the batting crease have yielded scores of 89 (101b), 140 (141b) and now 152 (160b). Both the quantum and the rate of scoring point to his levels of confidence, his mastery of the Indian bowling and his propensity to send the ball to unusual parts of the ground, which makes setting fields practically impossible.
Head has an excellent eye and two of the most fantastic hands going in world cricket. He is the kind of batter who doesn’t hold back, epitomising the ‘when you slash, slash hard’ maxim. He is fearless and happy to take chances; when they come off, like they do habitually against India, it transports him to a stratospheric plane that others can only aspire for.
Bumrah relies largely on only one hand – his right, to which is attached a fantastic wrist and a hyperextended elbow that allows him to do strange things. Strange for a bowler, that is. His non-bowling hand is an ally, but only that. It’s the right hand that spews venom, that makes the ball talk, that reduces the best in the business to blubbering wrecks. Unless you answer to the name of Travis Head.
His relentlessness means he is a hard bowler to ‘leave’ balls off when he is in the fourth- or fifth-stump line. His natural angle of delivery seems to suggest that the ball will keep coming in – either from over the stumps to the right-hander or round to the left-hander – but when he gets it to straighten from that wide release point, he finds the outside edge repeatedly. The wicketkeeper and the slips are always interested when Bumrah bowls, but that isn’t his only wicket-taking mode. He has a mean yorker which he is willing to use in Test cricket too, just as he is happy to try out his slower ones. There is a reason why he is universally hailed as the complete fast bowler. Former India coach Greg Chappell, one of Australia’s more successful captains and blessed with one of the sharpest cricketing brains, recently termed him a combination of Dennis Lillee, his great teammate, and Andy Roberts, the uncompromising West Indian quick with whom Chappell had several memorable battles. That’s high praise. Scratch that. That’s the ultimate praise.
For the second time in three Tests, Bumrah picked up a five-for. In Perth in the first innings, that proved match-winning. It’s potentially unlikely to be the case this time around, but the suspicion that India are almost entirely about Bumrah and that the rest are just props is rapidly gaining credence. That might be unfair on Akash Deep and Mohammed Siraj, but that’s how the cookie crumbles, doesn’t it?
