Who gets to open alongside Usman Khawaja has been Australia’s biggest headache leading up to the Ashes. While they found Jake Weatherald as the partner to Khawaja, it was Travis Head who stole the show for Australia at Perth. Opening in the second innings with Khawaja struggling with back issue, Head’s 123 helped the hosts chase a target of 203 with eight wickets in hand and go 1-0 up in the series.
Head’s aggression at the top, which saw him a score a century off 69 deliveries, completely left England shell-shocked. Having entered the Ashes with doubts around the form of their batsmen, Head’s performances at the top has given space to talks as to whether the left-hander should start opening in the Tests like he does in the white-ball format for Australia. In the lead up to the next Test at Brisbane starting December 4, there is going to plenty of discussions around it.
Australia’s head coach Andrew McDonald has now revealed the team could end up having a dynamic formula where Head gets to bat at No 5 in the first innings and could potentially bat at the top depending upon the circumstances.
“I think it gave us a little bit of a lens potentially to the future in terms of adjusting batting orders in second innings, which is something that we have discussed, to be able to put different people in different positions with the scenario that was presented,” McDonald said.
While flexibility is common in white-ball cricket, in Test cricket it is uncommon for teams to adapt a similar strategy. Some of the best openers in white-ball cricket have preferred to play in the middle-order in ODIs with the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Mark Waugh, Adam Gilchrist being prime examples.
And McDonald revealed that they have had discussions with the batting group about this flexibility to neutralise England. “You do it in one-day cricket, you front end some of your innings, you know the back end is going to be difficult to chase down the runs. Then there’s other times in one-day cricket where it’s difficult up front, you back end your innings, and you put all your power at the back end. So can that transition and Test cricket? Are people ready for that? It’s a conversation that we have had. We’ve had a conversation around Travis opening the batting for a long period of time, and Trav has been on the record this week and previously around that also. “I suppose now that it’s out there, yeah, happy to talk about it. Will we do it? If it presents at the right time, potentially,” he said.
