Travis Head, a regular thorn in India's flesh in the last couple of years, will be looking to continue his dominance over Rohit Sharma's side in the Champions Trophy semi-final. Naman Agarwal asks, how can he be stopped?
When Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya made their T20I debuts for India on January 26, 2016, the focus was largely on them - two very exciting young prospects who had come through the IPL and domestic ranks. And rightly so - nine years since, they are unarguably the two most irreplaceable cricketers India have.
Bumrah took 3-23 in that game. Hardik took 2-37. But there was another debutant who slipped through the ranks that night. Batting at No.4 for Australia, he made two off seven, given out lbw despite being struck outside off stump. Amidst a trademark India spin-choke, not many noticed who the batter was. Not many cared. Perhaps that was the villian origin story of Travis Head against India.
In the last two years, Head has inflicted wound after wound on India, across formats and continents, in Test finals, ODI finals and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy - Head has been omnipresent against India in the games that matter most. Even during India's T20 World Cup triumph last year, he scored 76 off 43 and was threatening to take the game away from them until Bumrah cut short the assault.
On Tuesday (March 4), he'll be back aiming to do much of the same. And this time there's no Bumrah. So how can India stop someone they have emphatically failed to stop in recent times?
Also read: Five areas where the India vs Australia Champions Trophy semi-final will be won or lost
Mohammed Shami, coming round
Head doesn't have the most textbook technique, which makes his sustained success all the more interesting. He prefers staying leg side of the ball and is extremely strong in converting half-decent balls in his range into boundary options. One weakness his technique exposes him to though is the way he deals with full balls that are angled into him before moving away from right-arm seamers bowling round the wicket.
While he has been vulnerable against that specific kind of delivery irrespective of the bowler, Afghanistan's Naveen-ul-Haq has had notable success against him with it. Naveen dismissed Head in both the 2023 ODI World Cup - in the match in Mumbai better remembered for Glenn Maxwell's cramp-defying double century - and in the 2024 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean with what was essentially the same ball, just bowled on slightly different lines.
Head's feet move nowhere and his setup, where he prefers staying leg-side of the ball exposes his stumps, brings every type of dismissal into play - bowled, lbw, caught behind. Mohammed Shami might be the only specialist seamer India play against Australia, and he will be their first line of attack against Head.
Shami enjoys bowling round the wicket to left-handers and has the ability to angle the ball in and move it away. If he is able to hit the right lengths - that is, top of the stumps - and generate a decent amount of movement in the air or off the pitch, Head could be in trouble. As he was that night in Ahmedabad early on...
Also read: After red and white, Travis Head renders Rohit Sharma's India colourless in pink
Resist the Arshdeep temptation
India have not used Arshdeep Singh in the Champions Trophy so far. There have been some calls that playing the left-arm seamer to counter Head could be something India can try. Most of it is based on two of Head's dismissals against left-arm seamers - one against Mitchell Starc in the IPL 2024 final and one against Shaheen Afridi in an ODI in 2022. On both occasions, Head had his stumps rattled.
That, however, is not indicative of a particular weakness against left-arm pace. In fact, Head has a terrific record against them, averaging 84.83 in ODIs and striking at 118.37, having been dismissed just six times. That average rises to 98.33 in the first ten overs. The two dismissals against Starc and Afridi were more a product of the kind of deliveries they were than who it came from - both were angled in and swung away sharply, exposing the same aspect of Head's technique as described above.
The steepness of the angle created by a right-arm seamer from round-the-wicket would be more than that created by a left-armer from over the wicket, making Head more susceptible to Shami's angled-in-but-moving-away deliveries than Arshdeep's. While there has been some movement available for seamers early on in Dubai, it hasn't sustained for long enough for India to consider Arshdeep over Varun Chakravarthy, who we'll get to next.
Varun's X-factor
Varun Chakravarthy has been a revelation since his international comeback. He has proven to be difficult to pick (and play) even for batters who have faced him in the past, let alone for those who haven't. Luckily for India, Travis Head hasn't. Not even in the IPL.
Since his comeback, Varun has taken 37 wickets in 14 innings across the two white-ball formats. While only six of those have come against left-hand batters, he has still averaged only 16 and conceded only 7.48 runs per over against them. India will use him against Head in the powerplay.
While the left-hander has never been dismissed by spin in the first ten overs of an ODI, Varun will pose a different challenge. His stock ball is the googly that turns away from the left-hander, but more importantly, Varun gets his googlies to drift away from the left-handers. This would create an opportunity for him to create a similar setup as say Shami or Naveen angling the ball into him from round the wicket before taking it away, albeit as a spinner.
In fact, to maximise the degree of drift Varun is able to extract, India should consider opening the bowling with him alongside Shami, holding back Hardik Pandya.
Also read: Already on a roll, Varun Chakravarthy's List A numbers suggest ODI success might not be far too
The Dubai surface
Usually when Head gets a start, it is enough to make him unstoppable and blow away the opposition. However, India might just have a second line of defence against him even if he goes through unbeaten into the middle overs.
The surfaces on offer in Dubai have been really slow and have turned more and more as the tournament has progressed. Head has a good record against the Indian bowlers, but tackling Jadeja and Kuldeep (and Axar) in Dubai without dew would be different from what he experienced in the 2023 World Cup final. However, India's margin for error, which is already low to begin with against Head, would drop further by this point and they would prefer having him back by then.
If they don't, muscle memory might begin to take over and they might find it increasingly hard to avoid getting beaten into submission on the big stage by the big man once again.
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