Head has been one of their top performers in recent years.
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has come up with an interesting role for Travis Head for the upcoming Ashes 2025 Down Under. Head has been one of their top performers in recent years and has established himself as a mainstay who does all the tough work.
Ponting wants him to embrace more challenges and bat at No.3, a position that has been in constant debate in the longest format. Marnus Labuschagne occupied it for a reasonable period before his poor form forced the team management to opt for alternatives.
According to Ponting, a young player initially bats slightly low in the order before being promoted, and this might be the time right to do the same with Head, who is among the most experienced members in Australia’s Test side. While talking to SEN, he added that the southpaw’s aggressive game from the top will put pressure on the likes of Jofra Archer and Mark Wood, who will be mighty effective on bouncy Australia tracks.
“As a young bloke, you used to come into the side as a No.5 or six player and eventually you worked your way up and find yourself in a No.3 spot. So, they could think about doing that with Travis Head; they could move him up to No.3.”
Australia gave an extended run to Cameron Green at No.3 in the West Indies series, and he did reasonably well, given the treacherous nature of the deck. There were initial troubles, including in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2025 final, but the all-rounder has slowly been settling into the role.
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Travis Head has batted only once at No.3 in his Test career, scoring 36, but the fixture came in 2018, and Australia have hardly touched his No.5 spot since. While batting at No.5, he has 2840 runs at an average of 41.76 in 73 outings, comprising 12 fifties and eight centuries.
At this point, he is among the few batters settled in his role, and Australia shouldn’t tinker with his spot since he has found ample success and played numerous match-winning knocks. That means Green should continue batting one down, where he has 188 runs at 23.50 across eight innings, with one fifty.
He gave encouraging signs on the West Indies tour, where the collective average of batters stood at a tepid 21.23. Despite mostly coming early in the innings, Green showed good application by facing the most balls (402) in the rubber and deserves an extended run at No.3 now that he has started to understand how to approach an innings in the top order.
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