Why dropping Travis Head was the best thing Australia’s selectors did for him

A mammoth century in the World Test Championship. A ton in the World Cup final. Twin tons in Australia. Robert Craddock unpacks from where Travis Head’s dominance over India stems.

It was either the selection howler of the year or a shrewd gee-up which triggered a run-scoring tsunami.

Fans watching Travis Head make minced meat of India’s attack at the Gabba may have found it extraordinary to think he was dropped against them in the first Test of the last series against India last year in Nagpur as Australia plumped for Matt Renshaw and Peter Handscomb instead.

That decision seemed to flick a switch inside him.

Head has been so dominant against them ever since you can actually sense India’s body language stiffen with an air of desperation and resignation when he arrives at the crease and starts ramping fast bowlers over slips or smoking them through the covers as he did at the Gabba.

Australia's Travis Head celebrates reaching his century with Steve Smith. Picture: Patrick Hamilton/AFP.

This series is not even half over and India are already heartily sick of the sight of Australia’s mercurial left-hander.

He blotted them out of the World Test Championship at The Oval last year with 163, snatched the World Cup 50-over trophy from their grasp with a powder keg 137, then came this summer’s rousing century in Adelaide before Sunday’s Gabba romp.

Head is Australia’s lucky charm. Since his Test debut in 2018 they have not won a Test without him (he has missed five in that time).

Head confuses and confounds India. They have no stable plan for him.

Go wide and he launches his ferocious cover drives. Go straight and he flicks them through mid-wicket. Their yorkers were also whipped to leg.

At their team meeting before this game India decided to bowl short to him but the sight of him rocking back and ramping over the slip cordon said enough of that tactic.

The infuriating thing for India is that at times Head may look vulnerable against many of these plans but he moves on quickly and without scars from his stumbles like a man with a goldfish memory.

You don’t fully appreciate Head’s power until you stand behind a net in which he is batting. The sound of his best drives is a cannon boom. It’s pure power of a rare ilk.

Travis Head has been in dominant form against India. Picture: Matt Roberts – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images.

Australia’s selectors have always loved Head’s potential but early on pondered whether he would do it justice. South Australia had produced three other exceptionally talented lefties with a similar cavalier style – David Hookes, Darren Lehmann and Wayne Phillips – yet for a variety of reasons none played more than 30 Tests.

Head has broken through and may yet play 100 or more. Captain Pat Cummins has played his part by just letting Trav be Trav. Australia will take the rocks with the diamonds.

In fact, his Gabba masterclass against India made Head the sole member of cricket’s most bizarre rocks and diamond club – batsmen who scored a king pair and a century on the same Test ground in a calendar year, given he made two first ball ducks against the West Indies last summer.

A few years ago Australia dropped him off the contract list and that little acorn on his seat also seemed to rouse him to peak form.

Originally published as Why dropping Travis Head was the best thing Australia’s selectors did for him