While there was plenty for Australia to take home about Travis Head’s potential match-winning century, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has said India may have ended up handing England some important lessons ahead of the Ashes that begins later this month.
Coming in at No 5, the left-handed Head played a counter-attacking innings on Day 1 that left India searching for answers. However, what was perplexing was that India’s pacers failed to test him with short balls, something he has struggled against in the past. Even during the 2018/19 Test series, India had used the short-ball tactic to good use against Head. But on Day 1, they completely ignored it until Head moved into the 90s. Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami then troubled him with a few well directed short balls, but it was too late.
“We might see teams attack him with the short stuff early in his innings,” Ponting said on Channel 7.
It wasn’t really until he was in the nineties that they went with a long-sustained barrage of short-ball bowling. At the moment, every time he’s coming out to bat, they’re pitching the ball up, they’re trying to nick him off. Guess what, that’s not working. It hasn’t worked for two years,” Ponting said.
Eventually, on Day 2 Head was dismissed by a short ball.
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