Tea Tree Gully cricketer Travis Head fifth on Sheffield Shield's run scorers tally

TEA Tree Gully cricketer Travis Head is considered one of Australia's brightest batting prospects.

TEA Tree Gully cricketer Travis Head sits fifth on this season's Sheffield Shield's run scorers tally and is considered one of Australia's brightest batting prospects.

But if not for some words from a former Test player and the support of teammates, the 19 year old, who has 466 runs at 42.36 this summer, could have quit the Gullies to become a wicketkeeper.

About five years ago, Head was playing B grade when an Adelaide Cricket Club official offered him a path to become its A grade gloveman.

It came on the back of his performances behind the stumps at a national schools tournament.

His coach at the time, 14-Test all-rounder Peter Sleep, had simple advice, which hit home.

"There's six batting spots in a team, there's only one wicketkeeping spot … you do the math," Sleep recalls.

"Stick with batting and I reckon you'll play state cricket."

The words rang true.

Head stayed with the Gullies, ditched the wicketkeeping gloves to focus on batting and made his Redbacks debut in February last year.

He says sticking with Tea Tree Gully was the right decision.

"I did think about it really hard and didn't know if I wanted to be a keeper or just a batter," Head says.

"It was something that I weighed up but Sleepy and the club had showed really great support for me before that decision and after. I decided to stay and I think it was a really good decision."

Former Australian coach and long-time Redbacks wicketkeeper Tim Nielsen says not continuing with the gloves has paid off for Head.

"We're hoping he'll become a senior player in our Shield side as a high-quality batsman that fields well," Nielsen says.

Sleep says Head, an Australian under-19 representative, can not be far away from playing senior international cricket and thinks a berth on the 2015 Ashes tour is "a very good possibility".

"If he keeps going the way he's going, possibly he'd get an Australia A tour coming up and that'll be the start of bigger things to come.

"But you need a bit of luck as well."