Head rules himself out of being Australia Test opener

MELBOURNE, Dec 11
Travis Head believes that opening the batting in Test cricket is a “specialist job” as he ruled himself out of contention to replace David Warner.
Having powered Australia to an ODI World Cup triumph with spectacular batting at the top of the order, Head presented a potentially intriguing option to succeed Warner who is set to retire after the upcoming Test series against Pakistan. Australia head coach Andrew McDonald recently hinted that replacing Warner may not come down to a straight like-for-like opening batter. Head had replaced an injured Warner in India earlier this year, where he counterattacked the new ball to average 55.75 across five innings.
But Head said he was firmly entrenched in the middle-order where his swashbuckling batting has thrived over the past two years. He believed Warner’s replacement was likely to come from those on the fringes, which include former Test openers Cameron Bancroft, Matthew Renshaw and Marcus Harris who all played in the Prime Minister’s XI game against Pakistan last week. “[Selectors are] happy with me in the middle order,” he told reporters in Perth ahead of the first Test against Pakistan starting on Thursday. “I think [opening] it’s a specialist job. The guys that have been waiting to get into the team for a while deserve the first crack at it. But the conversations are ongoing with everyone…only one for me is [opening in] the subcontinent. I don’t see myself moving around too much in the future.”
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With his position entrenched, Head’s focus turned to quickly switching to Test cricket having been the only player from Australia’s title-winning World Cup team to stay until the end of the subsequent five-match T20I series against India.
Ahead of that series, which was seemingly shoehorned into cricket’s congested calendar, there was some interest over whether Head would play having celebrated mightily with his revelry amusingly captured on social media. He played the final three games, but was unable to capitalise on strong starts in each of his innings. The series had its critics and many of Australia’s players returned home to either rest or play in the Sheffield Shield ahead of the Test summer. But Head was keen for opportunities at the top of the order to make his case to be part of Australia’s line-up at next year’s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and USA.
“I’m not a lock for that T20 World Cup, so I wanted to present and try to perform and try and get myself in that team. We felt like that was the greater opportunity to play the three T20s [than Shield],” Head said. “We haven’t got many T20 opportunities coming up over the next little bit, so it was sort of that last chance to press my claims to make sure that I’m in the mix.”
In his first hit-out against the red ball for months, Head was perhaps unsurprisingly sluggish against Australia’s quicks during a batting session on the WACA ground on Sunday. He made 99 against West Indies on a sedate Optus Stadium surface last summer, but expected a spicier pitch this time around.
“Pretty average yesterday…wicket is trickier,” Head said of his training session. “Nothing really changes from my side of things, I want to be positive. I want to be aggressive, but take the right percentages.”
Head said the broken hand that forced him to miss the early stages of the World Cup was still “not 100 percent”. “I think it’s getting close. Training’s a little bit restricted and a little bit sore, but in game time I haven’t felt it since the early games [after returning],” he said.
Since his heroics at the World Cup, Head has become something of a cult hero in Australia with even some of his compatriots dressing up as him for Christmas parties. He is set to be a fan favourite at the Perth Test in a city where the locals have had an uneasy relationship with the national team.
“It’s been crazy. I did myself sort of dirty with a couple photos, so did the boys a couple times,” Head said of his partying which turned into memes. “The support has been awesome.
“It was nice yesterday when the boys came together. There was 10 of us here that played in that [World Cup] and you can still feel the buzz and positive energy.”