India vs Australia: ‘He just comes on and is relentless with his length’, Australia’s Travis Head wary of India pacer

Captain of the Australia A team Travis Head is gearing up for the three-day practice match against India A starting Sunday at the Drummoyne Oval in Sydney, believing it will be a good warm-up ahead of the four-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy which begins later this month on December 17.

Head, who was part of Australia’s squad when they were beaten 1-2 by India during their tour in 2018-19 praised India’s bowling attack, and feels his game has improved since the last Test series between the two teams.

“I think my game has developed a long way since then,” Head said on the eve of the warm-up match. “You take confidence from everything you’ve done, you take experiences from every game you’ve played and every team you’ve come up against. Nice to have some memories from that series, but they are an unbelievable bowling attack and being well supported throughout.

Head scored 237 runs from seven innings at an average of 42.77, including two half-centuries, but like the rest of his teammates were blown away by India’s pace attack. Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami shared 48 wickets Australian between them out of 70 that fell overall. Head witnessed first hand was India’s pace attack is capable of and although they are without Ishant for the Test series, the Shami and Bumrah threat looms large for Australia.

“It’s the way they were able to back up and support each other, not dissimilar to how we are with our attack, you get through the new ball and someone like [Mohammed] Shami comes on and he’s just so relentless on his length,” he said.

“There was just no rest that, you had to be on for every bowler. That is expected of Test cricket but that was my first real look at a quality attack like that. Those next spells are as strong as their first so you have to be on 100% of the time.”