Australia came into The Ashes 2025 with concern over their openers. While Usman Khawaja was almost certain of his spot, Jake Weatherald got the chance to partner the veteran opener. However, Khawaja’s persistent back issues forced Australia to slot a new batter at the top during the match.
Marnus Labuschagne was promoted in the first innings while Travis Head took over the role in the second. Labuschagne could not deliver, scoring just nine runs but Head’s move turned out to be a masterstroke. Head, who batted at No.5 in the first Aussie innings, ended up blasting a quickfire 69-ball ton to wrap up the low-scoring contest in just two days and help the hosts take a 1-0 lead.
Following Travis Head’s heroics, Australia coach Andrew McDonald has now hinted that they might apply the dynamic strategy of batting Head in different slots in different innings for the remainder of the AUS vs ENG series.
Speaking to the media, the Aussie coach said, “You do it in one-day cricket, you front end some of your innings, you know the back end is going to be difficult to chase down the runs. Then there’s other times in one-day cricket where it’s difficult up front, you back end your innings, and you put all your power at the back end. So can that transition and Test cricket? Are people ready for that? It’s a conversation that we have had.”
He added, “We’ve had a conversation around Travis opening the batting for a long period of time, and Trav has been on the record this week and previously around that also. I suppose now that it’s out there, yeah, happy to talk about it. Will we do it? If it presents at the right time, potentially.”
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While Travis Head has experience of opening the innings in white-ball cricket, his role as an opener in Tests has been limited to just nine outings out of the 61 red-ball games he has so far played in his international career.
Interestingly, Travis’ numbers while batting at the top are also impressive with 444 runs at an average of 55.5, a jump from 42.34 when he is batting lower. Given the stats and his explosive batting, Head can be a lethal weapon as an opener and it seems like Australia is looking to exploit it more to neutralise England’s attacking ‘Bazball’.
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