There is a collective roar around the Adelaide Oval that is rapidly becoming synonymous with Travis Head putting on a show at this iconic venue. There is also a collective buzz around the Adelaide Oval that is rapidly becoming synonymous with Josh Hazlewood running through batting sides at this iconic venue.
It’s not that the two don’t evoke similar emotions everywhere else around the country. But there’s something about Head making runs in a hurry on his home ground, and Hazlewood taking wickets in a hurry at his most successful Test venue, among the traditional ones, on home soil. They’ve, if anything, become as much a part of summer in Adelaide as Moseley Bar on Glenelg Beach or the Tour Down Under. Even if we haven’t seen Hazlewood here over the last two seasons.
We will and we should lament about the fact that the first Test between these two one-time arch-rivals finished within 90 minutes into Day 3. Not so much that it happened but the extent to which it looked inevitable from the moment Pat Cummins won the toss and elected to field. We should also celebrate the fact that there was at least one bright spark amidst the expected struggles for the inexperienced West Indian outfit. And it’s safe to say that Shamar Joseph not only won over the Adelaide crowd on debut, towards the end of the match, he had become nearly as popular with them as their hometown hero, Head. So much so that the collective cheer that acknowledged Hazlewood as he held the ball up after his fifth wicket only got louder as the young Joseph walked out to bat at No 11. Talk about first impressions.
That both Head, with his blistering ton, and Hazlewood with his best match-figures in Test cricket to date, would feel at home on the same surface, might be a strange idea for any other combination of batter and bowler. It also tells you however that there aren’t two more contrasting cricketers in this current world champion Australian Test team, than the free-scoring South Australian left-hander and the metronomic right-arm fast bowler from New South Wales.
Because of what Hazlewood does with ball in hand seems so straightforward, despite it being so challenging to pull off as consistently as he does, it’s understandable that his bowling skills don’t get talked up as much as his colleagues, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc. Ironically, it’s his greatest strength, the unerring radar as a bowler that ensures that he kind of slips under the radar, relatively speaking as compared to Cummins and Starc.
Hazlewood is so good at what he does, landing the ball on the proverbial handkerchief and repeatedly threatening both the batter’s outside-edge and the top of his off-stump, that there’s a sense of inevitability about how good he is. To the extent that you take his brilliance for granted. That you don’t always appreciate just how good he is. As a bowler, he’s got a technique and approach that comes with a strong “please try this at home” recommendation.
It’s the completely different to Head with bat in hand. His is, if anything, a technique and approach that comes with a strong “please do not try this at home” disclaimer. It’s very much home-grown. He gets into positions to hit the ball and score runs that only Head can. He plays the kind of shots on both sides of the wicket that only he can. And ironically, it’s his perceived imperfections, in terms of him not being your textbook batter, that ensure that you can never take your eyes off him when he’s at the crease. It’s what makes every Travis Head innings must-see TV. It’s also what allows him perhaps to end up being the crisis man for Australia, scoring runs in conditions where everyone else in his team and the opposition look unable to do so. Like here at the Adelaide Oval this week.
Yes, he did make a century against the West Indies at the same venue last summer. The ball maybe of a different colour but that attack still had Alzarri Joseph in it. The surface in January 2024 was a lot different to the one he walked out to bat on in December 2022 though. So was the match scenario. And unlike the debutant fast bowler on that occasion, Marquino Mindley, who only bowled two overs before breaking down, Shamar Joseph ended up being the most challenging bowler that Head and his batting collaegues had to overcome this time around.
He was also overall up against a more disciplined and a more incisive West Indian bowling attack than the one he dominated 13 months ago. And for large periods of his innings, Australia were behind the game, with the visitors continuing to take wickets at the other end. But Head, like he has done so often in the last two years, continued to find ways of being aggressive and eventually not only gave Australia the lead but also more or less batted West Indies out of the game, despite the home team only making 280 in their first innings.
You could say that he’d pulled off a Travis Head on a pitch that was custom-desgined for Josh Hazlewood. And you might be right. Where Hazlewood stood out though was finding the precise length on the pitch, which his partners weren’t as accurate finding, to run through the West Indies top to middle-order in both innings.
The two cricketing odd-fellows won’t have to wait a whole year to be back in Adelaide for a Test now. In less than 11 months, they’ll be up against an Indian team that will be a slightly more challenging proposition as they look to win their third straight series on Australian soil. It will also be a four-year anniversary since Hazlewood made the Adelaide Oval his home away from home, with that incredible spell to bowl out India for 36. And he will be expected to create the buzz that has become a part of the Adelaide summer, just like the very vocal love for Head, which only seems to grow every time he steps out at the Adelaide Oval.
