Travis Head opens up about "rift" between Australian batters and bowlers

Travis Head said there’s “definitely no bad blood” between the batting unit and bowling group in the Australian Test set-up. Most of the Australian batters haven’t been in good form of late, and were exposed terribly against Jasprit Bumrah and Co. in the opening Test of the Border-Gavaskar trophy.

Australia could only manage totals of 104 and 238, with Head (89 off 101) being the only Australian batter to cross the 50-run mark in the entire match. The hosts eventually lost the game by a massive margin of 295 runs.

Following the defeat, Josh Hazlewood was asked how Australia could turn things around in the remaining four games, to which the right-arm seamer replied: “You probably have to ask one of the batters that question... I’m probably looking mostly towards the next Test,” reported News.com.au.

Hazlewood is now ruled out of the second Test, which will be played in Adelaide with a pink ball from December 6. Talking about the possible rift in the team, Head said: “Batters want to hold our own … we know how good our bowlers have been in the past.

“Knowing that if I can set it up for the big boys, they can knock it down for us, so definitely no bad blood. I feel like this team has dealt with adversity well, with the small amount that we’ve had in the last three or four years.

“We’ve had some challenging times, we had a couple of challenging Tests last year that we were able to get ourselves out of. Our heads aren’t in the clouds, we understand a few Tests last year we understand could’ve gone either way.”

Most of the Australian batters looked clueless against Bumrah, who picked up eight wickets and was rightly named Player of the Match. Head, however, managed to hold his own and slammed eight fours in his 89-run knock in the final innings.

“(The other batters) are not coming to me for batting tips, that’s for sure. Everyone goes about it in different ways … we’re all supporting each other … we’ll have a chat over the next three or four days,” said Head.

“(Bumrah) is so unique, and that’s with any of the bowlers, really. Every (batter) picks up different cues and goes about it in a different way.

“Jasprit’s going to go down as probably one of the greatest fast bowlers to play the game. I think we’re finding that at the moment, how challenging he can be, and it’s nice to play against that.

“It’s going to be nice to look back at your career and tell the grandkids that you faced him, so not a bad series to be playing with him.”

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