England beaten by Australia's War-Head

Travis Head played one of the greatest fourth innings masterclasses. He made 205 look like 25 when he was batting.

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Perhaps Australia’s greatest batting on Day 1 of the first Ashes Test in Perth, was when Cameron Green somehow managed not to get bowled. The ball smashed into his face very violently, and then with sort of Mikhail Baryshnikov level skills, he managed to twirl himself around the stumps. You would have thought, being the giraffe -like human he is, he would have just stood over them. But somehow, he managed to actually go around his stumps to make sure that he didn’t tread on them. Of course, he was still hit in the head and didn’t go on to make a very big score. That was Australia’s batting on Day 1.

Australia’s batting on Day 2 was Travis Head winning a Test match, almost on his own.

Australia’s batting has been terrible for a very long time. Some of this is not completely their fault. It’s the fact that the pitches have changed a little bit at home and they have been spicier. In domestic cricket, Shield surfaces have also changed. The Kookaburra ball has been reinforced, and there is a new delivery that exists that is targeting people specifically on Australian pitches. But when it comes down to it, Australian batters have not made the sort of runs that they used to, which were those ridiculous totals that just meant it was impossible for the opposition to actually even be in the game.