ANI
Canberra
Australia’s star batter Travis Head believes opening the batting in Test cricket is a “specialist job” and has ruled himself out of contention to replace veteran David Warner.
There will be a David Warner-sized hole for Australia to fill after the three-match ICC World Test Championship series against Pakistan starting this week, but World Cup hero Head clarified that he is not one of the few competing for that spot.
Australia’s head coach, Andrew McDonald, previously intimated that replacing Warner could not be as simple as a like-for-like opening batter swap. Head had filled in for an ailing Warner earlier this year in India, where he counterattacked the new ball to average 55.75 over five innings.
However, Head stated that he was firmly established in the middle order, where his swashbuckling hitting has thrived over the last two years. He anticipated Warner’s successor would emerge from the fringes, including former Test openers Cameron Bancroft, Matthew Renshaw, and Marcus Harris, all of whom participated in the Prime Minister’s XI game against Pakistan last week.
“[Selectors and team are] happy with me in the middle order,” he told the media before the Perth Test set to begin on Thursday, according to ICC.
“I think 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 [taking the opening role] the subcontinent. I don’t see myself moving around too much in the future,” Head said.
The left-hander isn’t yet a permanent member of the T20I team, and he recently stayed in India after the Cricket World Cup to play the final three bilateral T20Is rather than flying home to play the Sheffield Shield.
Head was looking for opportunities at the top of the order to cement his place in Australia’s lineup for next year’s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean and the United States.
“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].
“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,” Head said.
