As India and many other sides in the world have found many times in the last 15-18 months when Travis Head is on song irrespective of the color of the ball the gutsy left-hander takes the game away from the opposition. The 30-year-old also holds the record of winning eight of Man Of the Matches for his eight centuries in Test matches which is an indication of the impact he has on games.
However, former Australian skipper Tim Paine revealed that former coach Justin Langer and other support staff tried to tame the aggression of the southpaw. “I don’t think either of them will mind me saying this, but I think he and JL used to have a real difference of opinion,” Paine said on Tuesday on SEN Breakfast.
“You’ve got Test greats in commentary and you’ve got a Test great (Langer) that’s coaching and Graeme Hick at the time who’d scored 101 first-class hundreds as his batting coach (offering advice). They were trying really hard for him to work on his defense and it wasn’t the way he wanted to go about it, but he was a young Test player who was trying to impress and trying to stay in the team, so he was trying to please a bit of everyone.
“I think that’s been the major shift in his output because he is sticking true to the way he wants to play. At times he’s going to fail and at times he’s gonna have lean patches, but he’s going to be super aggressive, he’s going to play his shots and he’s going to try and be a matchwinner and we’re just seeing him blossom at the moment in all formats of the game,” Paine added.
Though technically not most pleasing on the eye Head has managed to become a formidable batter for Australia in red-ball crack and has developed a reputation of having the potential to turn the game around in a matter of session with his attacking play through either side of the squares.
