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IND vs AUS 2023 | Australian coach reveals Travis Head’s response to first Test snub


image-le2srf37Travis Head against South Africa in 2022 (Twitter)

Australia's in-form batter Travis Head was dropped from the first Test playing XI against India in Nagpur. 

Head was in imperial touch with the bat in 2022, minting 655 runs across 10 Tests. However, he struggled to make any impact throughout tours to Pakistan and Sri Lanka, countries with similar conditions to India.

As a result, the cricketer, currently ranked number four on the ICC Test rankings for batters, was overlooked from the starting XI owing to his poor record on the subcontinent. 

Meanwhile, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald has now revealed that Head was unhappy with the team management, who were hoping to get their combination right early in their high-profile series in India.

The former all-rounder cited the statistics and defended the team management's call to exclude Head, even though the decision ended up backfiring owing to their heavy defeat in the series opener.

Here's what McDonald said

"I think the discussion point that we went through in the process will be different to hindsight. And the hindsight is that those people that you will compare the competition for place around didn't perform the way that we'd probably expected,


"Travis Head had different thoughts on that and that's fair enough. And he's entitled to have different thoughts on that along with others. And we're not saying any decision that we make is right or wrong."

Australia, who lost the first Test comprehensively by an inning and 132 runs, will look to bounce back in the second game in Delhi starting this Friday.