Last Updated on 4 years ago by Charbel Coorey
Cricket News: Should Australia pick David Warner & Travis Head for India tour? | David Warner & Travis Head under spotlight after poor series vs SL
Australia rounded up their tour to Sri Lanka with a discouraging defeat in the second Test against the hosts. The Pat Cummins-led side suffered its first-ever innings defeat against the Lankans. Prabath Jayasuriya took 12 wickets in the game to completely derail the Australian batting effort.
The Aussies sit in the second spot in the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) 2021-23 rankings currently. They recorded a series victory in Pakistan earlier this year and put up a spirited performance in Sri Lanka as well. However, Cummins’ men are already eyeing the Border Gavaskar Trophy in India next year as their ultimate subcontinental challenge.
“In a lot of ways, it’s been nice to have a subcontinent tour of Pakistan, then here [in Sri Lanka] and build towards India. Conditions will be very different. We will get a lot of variation from venue to venue,” Australia’s assistant coach Daniel Vettori was quoted in a report by ESPNCricinfo following their victory in the first game in Galle.
He added, “You could get anything in between [the pitches in Pakistan and Sri Lanka]. If you play at Mohali it is going to be flat, if you play at Wankhede [in Mumbai] it could turn square like here. You can’t just have one plan.”
Huge wake up call for Australia in Asia, as Warner & Head struggle overseas
However, Australia’s relatively poorer batting performances in the second Test against Sri Lanka must have served the think-tank a rude reminder of the challenges that await them in India. Reinforcements are required in the batting line-p in order to effectively combat the conditions on offer in the country. Amidst this backdrop, the performances of David Warner and Travis Head have come under scanner recently.
Warner anyways has a rather middling record in Tests in India. The southpaw averages 24.25 after eight games and has registered merely three half-centuries in 16 innings. His highest-score in these games is 71 and it is his second-worst average amongst all the nations that he played Tests in.
It is in stark contrast to his robust average of 55.41 in ODIs in India, which indicates that there is a structural defect with the way he approaches the red-ball game particularly in the subcontinent. Warner hasn’t scored a century in his last 21 Test innings and he averages merely 22.17 after seven games in 2022.
He struggles against India’s spin twin of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja as well. Ashwin has dismissed him 10 times in Tests whereas Jadeja has sent him back to the pavilion on four occasions. Warner averages merely 18.2 and 14.8 against them respectively and India will most likely unleash its entire spin-bowling repertoire against the 35-year-old.
Travis Head also under the microscope
If Warner’s form has been concerning at the top, it is Travis Head who can face the axe in the middle-order.
Head has been a regular at the number five slot in the last few years majorly due to the promising outcomes that he has delivered Down Under. With four centuries, six half-centuries and an average of 49.88, Head has certainly been an incredible performer for Australia in home conditions.
However, his performances seem to plummet sharply during overseas assignments. The 28-year-old has an average of 23.76 in 11 Tests away from home. The figure reads 22.76, 7.67 and 30.50 in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) respectively.
Warner and Head occupy critical positions that can lay the foundation of Australia’s batting efforts in alien circumstances in India. However, Warner holds too big a stature to be benched for such an important series India. Moreover, he has repeatedly proven his mettle in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the selectors along with the skipper will be hopeful that he can translate some of that form into the Test format.
Australia could look at Glenn Maxwell for India tour
It appears currently that there is a much greater threat to Head’s slot in the side though. The left-hander has no experience of playing Test cricket in India and his overseas performances otherwise do not paint a much rosy picture either. There were intensifying calls of Glenn Maxwell replacing him in the XI recently but that did not transpire in the recent series against Sri Lanka.
Could that be a possibility in the series in India though?
The middle-order maverick has been an instrumental part of Australia’s success in T20Is. He has recorded an average of 70.60 and 40 in ODIs in 2021 and 2022 respectively and looks in fine touch most of the times that he steps on to bat. He has the ability to win matches from precarious situations and any team will require that kind of an unpredictable element in their roster to pull off a feat as momentous as a Test series victory in India. Furthermore, Maxwell’s only ever Test century was in India as well, when he scored 104 runs in the third Test in Ranchi of the 2017 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Can we see a possible shakeup in the Australian batting line-up ahead of the India series next year?
