Head's all-time innings steers Australia to famous win

An Ashes Test with a plot less believable than a bad Netflix movie was decided by the blade of a rampaging Travis Head, whose match-winning century for the ages ripped the heart out of England and gave Australia an improbable 1-0 series lead at Perth Stadium.

England went from Bazball-brilliant to boiled lollies in under 24 hours as Head's barnstorming 69-ball ton, the second fastest in Ashes history behind Adam Gilchrist's 57-ball effort over the Swan River at the WACA Ground almost two decades ago, fired the hosts to an eight-wicket win inside two days.

The South Australian cult hero's latest knock for the ages came despite – or maybe because of – his last-minute promotion to open after Usman Khawaja was unable to take his regular spot for the second consecutive day due to back spasms.

Head cracked four sixes and 16 fours on the way to an epic 83-ball 123, teaming up for another important union with fellow 2023 World Cup final hero Marnus Labuschagne (51no from 49), this time the pair putting on an 117-run stand.

The pair shared a warm embrace when Head was finally caught in the deep with 13 runs still to get.

But the England speed demons who had left Australia battered and bruised when they rolled them for only 132 on Saturday morning lost all menace when they were forced to front up to bowl for the second time in as many days.

Ben Stokes refused to deviate from a short-ball barrage despite the pace of its main exponents, Jofra Archer and Gus Atkinson, dropping below 130kph after they had hovered around the 150kph mark a day earlier.

The injury-prone Mark Wood meanwhile puzzlingly bowled just three fourth-innings overs.

Head celebrated his rapid hundred, the third fastest by an Australian in Tests and quickest ever in the fourth innings of a Test, with a twirl of his bat and an understated first pump, before the almost 50,000-strong crowd launched into a 'We love Head' chant.

Third-day ticketholders were surely the only (home) fans who left the Burswood arena disappointed. "I feel sorry for the people who can't come tomorrow," Head confessed speaking to Seven.

It was an unfathomable turn of events from only hours earlier when England were 105 runs ahead of their opponents with nine wickets in hand on a surface that appeared to have flattened out after 19 first-day wickets.

The efforts of Mitchell Starc, who took 3-55 to give him 10 victims for the match for the third time in his career, and the resurgent Scott Boland (4-33) saw England set Australia just 205 to win after they looked certain to require several hundred more.

It might have been an even smaller total to chase had tailenders Atkinson (37 off 32) and Brydon Carse (20 off 20) not kyboshed 50 for the eighth wicket.

Khawaja had tweaked his back leaping for a Jamie Smith edge that went flying over the slips cordon, stiffly leaving the field later in the over and not emerging for the remainder of the day.

It meant Jake Weatherald walked out with his second new opening partner in as many innings. Head was at least more familiar than Labuschagne, who opened in Khawaja's place on Friday, with the pair having played school cricket against each other in Adelaide before becoming teammates at South Australia.

Weatherald, fresh off a first-innings duck, gave a cheeky smile after taking 11 balls to score his first Test runs. He showed off his square-of-the-wicket chops but, after surviving an incorrect caught-behind call on 7, top-edged Brydon Carse onto his helmet and into the hands of Ben Duckett on 23.

The 75-run opening salvo nonetheless proved vital to the extraordinary Head-Labuschagne onslaught that followed.

England's flagging seamers repeatedly bashed an rapidly-softening ball into an increasingly placid pitch as Head ramped, lofted, pulled and hoicked balls over and through the extravagant spread fields laid out by Stokes.

Labuschagne brought up his half-century off just 49 balls after Head departed with a towering six off Joe Root's part-time spin, before Steve Smith (5no) hit Carse for the winning runs through the off-side.

Putting ones in front of zeroes is normally the domain of computer programmers. This Test, the scorers have also been working in binary; for the third time in two days, the batting team slumped to 1-0, with Zak Crawley bagging England's first Ashes pair this century.

Starc's 25th first-over Test wicket was even more spectacular than his 24th taken hardly 24 hours earlier. Again, Crawley pushed too hard, this time bunting a catch off the splice of his bat towards the bowler who took a sprawling one-handed snare millimetres above the turf.

Starc later declared the lengthy ensuing review from the television umpire that went in his favour as delayed justice for his disallowed catch off Ben Duckett during the 2023 Lord's Test.

Pope, who played and missed four times in 13 balls during the testy period, rode his luck in mounting a 65-run stand with Duckett and batting their team into an ominous position.

It took 11 balls from Boland to up-end the Test once more.

With the right-armer bowling a more challenging, and shorter, length than he had in the first innings, Duckett, Pope and Harry Brook were all caught behind the wicket attempting to bully him off the front foot like they had the previous day.

England had lost 3-0 in six balls after lunch when Joe Root, who had gotten off his pair before pulling Cameron Green imperiously for four, chopped on to Starc.

When Ben Stokes (2) edged an outswinger from the Aussie spearhead to be out for his second single-figure score of the match, Starc had dismissed the former and current England captains in both innings.

England's tail capitulated against the short ball after the Carse-Atkinson union, Brendan Doggett the chief beneficiary as the debutant finished with match figures of 5-78.

2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men's Ashes

First Test: Australia win by eight wickets

Second Test: December 4-8, The Gabba, Brisbane (D/N), 3pm AEDT

Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT

Australia squad (first Test only): Steve Smith (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue, Mark Wood