Cape Town: Travis Head has pushed back against calls to regenerate the Test team, arguing Australia should maintain their recent policy to reinforce a “strong team” with seasoned players from domestic ranks, and not radically alter things due to one “shithouse day” that cost them the second Test against South Africa.
Following his rearguard century, featuring a long partnership with nightwatchman Scott Boland, Head admitted the team had identified an underperforming batting order as an issue to be addressed before this series, but could not put his finger on why they had not managed to pass 400 in an innings since January last year – 10 Test matches ago.
Head stopped short of batting for the retention of Nic Maddinson or Marnus Labuschagne in the top three, only saying he would support them as teammates. He identified with Labuschagne’s struggles to make big scores, and stressed that Maddinson’s qualities as a person would not be lost because of a few low scores in his Test comeback.
But Head’s most striking message was that strong teams should be reinforced with senior players while weaker teams rebuild, adamant that Australia must be considered the former.
“The times that you’ve seen strong Australian cricket teams, you’ve seen older guys come in because I think just it’s a byproduct of how strong the Test team is,” Head said. “It’s great that we’ve got a strong Test team. It’s great that that means that we know that our next guys in are hardened first-class cricketers.
“If you look at the guys that you guys talk about, it’s the Kurtis Pattersons of the world, the Peter Handscombs. I’m going to miss people, but guys that have played a lot of first-class cricket.
“Then you skip a generation, you go to Sam Konstas and the [Ollie] Peakes and the [Campbell] Kellaways. It’s where does this team fit, and where can it fit, and where can we continue to be where we want to be, which is Test championship finals or contenders, and what’s that person going to bring?”
Maddinson and all-rounder Beau Webster are expected to come under severe pressure for their places this week, but Head said that fans and commentators should take a breath and not throw out a bunch of names because of what transpired in Gqeberha.
“Next week might look different to this week, and it will purely be down to winning a game of cricket,” he said. “And I think that’s the way they select in the team. And I think I have confidence in the first-class system. I have confidence in the next man in being an experienced 32-year-old like a Jake Weatherald or Pete Handscomb, Kurtis Patterson, who have all done well.
“I think right now it’s that we’ve got a strong Australian cricket team. We haven’t played very well, and people will doubt that over this week. They doubt if it’s a strong cricket team. It has been [strong] over a period of time. We’ve had a shit week. That’s OK. Past selections show that we’re trying to slot guys in to continue to be world No.1.”
Nevertheless, Head joined captain Pat Cummins in accepting that batting performances had to improve if the team was to succeed in Cape Town.
“It’s difficult putting the finger on things,” he said. “I think we’ve spoken as a group going into the series that we’ve sort of had one individual each time, and they’ve always been different individuals, and we sort of haven’t been able to get that collective batting day that we would desire as a team.
“So if you look through it, or you look Greeny [Cameron Green] and Darwin, in Mackay we batted once and 180 was enough for two innings. Then you look at last week with Renners’ [Matt Renshaw] game. Again this game, I was able to step up and get runs, but like it’s always been sort of one individual at a time, and we haven’t been able to get that collective. And we talked about that into the series.
“We just haven’t been able to find that, and it’s something that the team’s been really good at over a long period of time now is that built big partnerships, substantial partnerships that win games of cricket. We just haven’t been able to find that in the last couple of months. It’s very hard to put a finger on while we’re playing some exceptional attacks in some trying conditions. But yeah, it’s not through lack of trying.”
The players will rest up ahead of the Newlands Test, with some partners and families arriving for the final week of the tour. Head said it was important to keep the series ledger in perspective and not let the St George’s Park performance “eat away” at them.
“I think it’s pretty clear on what we got wrong,” he said. “We had a pretty shithouse day. As simple as that. If we don’t get bowled out for 99, more than likely the Test goes to a draw. It’s pretty obvious what we did poorly.
“So I think there’s disappointment in the room. We’ll talk about it over the next few days. We have a couple of training sessions. Guys will be switched on. Guys will be ready to go again.
“ It’s not lost on us, but you’ve got to dust yourself off pretty quickly because you’re in the series. And if you let that eat away at you, then you start slowly next week, and we could end up with another game at this point in a week.”
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