Travis Head talks to Paras Mhambrey about India’s short-ball plan.

India’s bowling coach, Paras Mhambrey, said that the team’s plan for trying to get rid of Australia’s Travis Head in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2021–23 final at the Oval in London was to throw short balls.

In terms of the game, the Aussies were in a bit of trouble after losing three wickets with only 76 runs on the board in the first inning. But an unbeatable combination of 251 runs between Travis Head and Steve Smith kept the Aussies in the lead at the end of Day 1.

Travis Head was the best player of the day. He stayed strong at the fence and made Smith’s job easier with his natural game. Head played a very aggressive game and scored a lot of runs with his perfect strokes to reach a magnificent century.

The flashy southpaw ended the day’s play with a perfect score of 146 off 156 balls and a strike rate of 93.58. He had hit as many as 22 fours and a six. With this, Paras Mhambrey, India’s bowling coach, said that his team did make a plan to reveal the Australian batter by bowling short-length deliveries.

“That’s something our bowlers have talked about. We’ve always thought that short-length balls were something we could use against Travis Head. We could have finished it a bit sooner. “This strategy could have worked maybe 30 or 40 runs before,” Mhambrey was quoted as saying by ‘The West’.

On Day 1, when they were up against Head, pacers Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami hit the right lengths. Shortly after the tea break, the pacers bowled short-length balls, which briefly bothered the southpaw. However, the southpaw’s clear mind and natural strokeplay helped him lead Australia to 327/3 on Day 1.

Smith and Head will try to keep their lead on Day 2 and try to make a big score. Team India, on the other hand, will need to make early gains if they want to get back into the game.