Travis Head has proved to be India’s biggest nemesis in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Ashwin is quite active on social media platform 'X' after announcing his retirement last week, following the third Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test at the Gabba.
On the eve of the Boxing Day Test at MCG, the legendary off-spinner shared an interesting observation regarding Travis Head, who has proved to be India’s biggest nemesis in the ongoing series.
Head is leading the run-scoring charts from both sides, with 409 runs to his name at an average of 81.80. The southpaw played a match-winning knock of 140 in 141 balls with 17 boundaries and 4 sixes during the pink-ball Test in Adelaide. He followed up with an equally magnificent 152 in the rain-marred Gabba Test.
However, Head has been dismissed multiple times in the series by fast bowlers bowling from around the wicket, with both Harshit Rana and Jasprit Bumrah finding success with this ploy.
After watching Travis Head’s batting drills ahead of the Melbourne Test, Ashwin on Wednesday (December 25) highlighted that the swashbuckling left-hander seemed to guard his off-stump to ensure he cleared a higher area around the off-stump to negate the round-the-wicket threat.
Talking about Travis Head, he had suffered a quad strain during the third Test against India in Brisbane. Hence, there were some doubts over his participation in the penultimate of the five-match series, currently tied at 1-1.
However, Australian captain Pat Cummins on Wednesday confirmed that the middle-order batter ticked all the boxes during the stringent fitness test and was ultimately declared fit to play in Melbourne.
"Trav's good to go, he'll play. He just ticked off some final things today and yesterday. But no worries about injury with Trav. He'll go into the game fully fit," Cummins told reporters.
"I don't think you'll see too much management of him throughout the game. He just kind of plays as is. Maybe around fielding, if he's a bit uncomfortable, we will (manage him), but he's fully fit."
Australia’s XI for Boxing Day Test: Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Mitch Marsh, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins (C), Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Scott Boland