Larrikin-in-chief returns as Head slays his drag-ons

Seven balls into his innings at Harare Sports Club on Friday, Travis Head wandered back into his crease after a mis-hit with his arms lifted above his head in mock celebration, adding another exaggerated fist pump for good measure after checking for his teammates' reactions on the sidelines.

Anyone who had watched Head bat recently knew exactly what was going on. The left-hander had just inside-edged an off-side forcing shot off Blessing Muzarabani onto his thigh pad. In his previous four international innings, near-identical edges had deflected off his bat onto his stumps after he had reached 22, 17 and 22 in Tests against Bangladesh, and then again, for 4, in the ODI series opener against Zimbabwe.

"I'm running out of bats – every time I chop one on, I throw it in the bin," he said later, tongue firmly in cheek.

Not for the first time did Head's larrikin-in-chief demeanour mask serious thinking. On this occasion, there was a mental reset after not only the inside-edge, but also a huge missed heave and a genuine play-and-miss off a jaffa from the Muzarabani deliveries either side of his let-off.

After he avoided a fifth straight 'drag on', he ripped both his gloves off, took a breath, then strapped both gloves back on, before facing up. Head flicked the penultimate ball of the over for a towering six over the leg-side. He was away.

Here, on full display, was Head's ability to not mentally dwell on failure. It was still not midday by the time Head walked off with 112 to his name from only 84 balls, his eighth ODI hundred and first in any format since last summer's Ashes. "It hasn't weighed on my mind," Head said of the unusual preceding sequence of chop-ons.

"It's something you're conscious of when you're working at training. You never want trends – but I guess there's worse trends to have. Moved around the crease a little bit – but when I'm batting, I'm not too worried about it.

"It's just in that moment I'm pretty tongue in cheek and have a laugh with the boys up in the box. So that was what the reaction (to the early inside-edge) was."

As the boundaries flowed, so too did Head's laconic tendencies unspool over the course of the morning. There was the waddling between the wickets, the stream of chatter with wicketkeeper Brendan Taylor, and even an apology to umpire Iknow Chabi after nearly cleaning him up with a clubbed blow past Sikandar Raza.

An initially subdued reaction to his hundred gave way to a series of gestures back to the changerooms, his partner Cooper Connolly – whose vow to model his game off Head has paid dividends with three straight fifty-plus scores – grinning beside him.

Head is nothing if not a people pleaser. "He always sees the funny side of things," Josh Hazlewood told cricket.com.au. "He's one of those players that's never really in or out of form."

When the adrenaline of his destructive 114-minute knock had worn off, Head stopped a ball in the field with his foot and tried to soccer it up to his hands without bending over. Later he made an athletic one-handed stop on the boundary and hammed up the cheers from Harare's generous and generally electric fans by raising his arms above his head again in mock celebration.

It would not altogether have been a surprise if he had popped over the fence and joined Castle Corner's spirited singing and dancing as Zimbabwe doomed their run chase by taking just 44 off their Powerplay in pursuit of 357.  

Head, following the high of his dominant three-hundred Ashes campaign at home last summer, had been around long enough to know it would be difficult to sustain that level of output.

He went to the IPL and piled on 410 runs at a strike-rate of 170. But the challenge of a disciplined Bangladesh attack on unfamiliar wickets in Darwin and Mackay, still young in his career as an opening bat of course, was perhaps the 'slump' he needed to have.

"You're not going to get runs every game," he said. "My role in the team is to be aggressive at the top. I'm not always going to go out and be as consistent as I would love to be. I want to put bowlers under pressure. That's going to come with some risk every now and then.

"I had a lot of time away. I went through an IPL and then had a couple months off, so felt like I was close and played well in the Test matches up in Darwin and Mackay … I was really happy with my process and how I was going about it.

"I faced (74 and 26) balls in each of those Tests … so I knew that I was playing well. You're always just keen to start the summer with runs – with a big period off from playing for Australia, just keen to get in and get runs. I like to hold myself at a high standard, and I expect to try and score runs as many times as possible.

"It kick-starts hopefully what is another (four) ODIs for us before the Test matches, and hopefully I can get a bit of rhythm. That's what I was looking for when I came on this tour. I wanted to try and find rhythm early.

"Then, like the Ashes, you try to hold on to that as long as you possibly can."

Head confirmed that, "at this stage", he plans to be opening the batting in next month's first Test in Durban amid suggestions Australia should or might rejig their batting order. Either way, he shapes as one of the series' most important figures.

"He can score a hundred (from anywhere) – it's always around the corner. And when he does, it usually wins the game for us," said Hazlewood.

In fact, Head is the definition of a 'match-winner'; his latest ton in Harare was his 20th in international cricket. From those games, not once have Australia lost.

Qantas tour of Zimbabwe 2026

All matches broadcast exclusively in Australia on Kayo and Fox Cricket

First ODI: Australia beat Zimbabwe by 59 runs

Second ODI: Australia beat Zimbabwe by 84 runs

Third ODI: September 20, Harare Sports Club, 5:30pm AEST (9:30am local)

Zimbabwe squad: Sikandar Raza (c), Ben Curran, Blessing Muzarabani, Brad Evans, Brendan Taylor, Brian Bennett, Craig Ervine, Ernest Masuku, Graeme Cremer, Innocent Kaia, Newman Nyamhuri, Ryan Burl, Tadiwanashe Marumani, Wellington Masakadza, Wessly Madhevere

Australia squad: Mitchell Marsh (c), Xavier Bartlett, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Joel Davies, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Spencer Johnson, Oliver Peake, Matthew Renshaw, Billy Stanlake, Adam Zampa

Qantas tour of South Africa 2026

All matches to be broadcast exclusively in Australia on Kayo and Fox Cricket

First ODI: September 24, Kingsmead Stadium, Durban, 6pm AEST (10am local)

Second ODI: September 27, Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg, 6pm AEST (10am local)

Third ODI: September 30, JB Marks Oval, Potchefstroom, 9:30pm AEST (D/N, 1:30pm local)

South Africa ODI squad: Temba Bavuma (c), Corbin Bosch, Matthew Breetzke, Gerald Coetzee, Quinton de Kock, Tony de Zorzi, Bjorn Fortuin, Duan Jansen, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kwena Maphaka, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Nqobani Mokoena, Ryan Rickelton, Tristan Stubbs

Australia ODI squad: Mitchell Marsh, Pat Cummins, Xavier Bartlett, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Joel Davies, Nathan Ellis, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Spencer Johnson, Oliver Peake, Matthew Renshaw, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa

Warm-up match: October 3-4, JB Marks Oval, Potchefstroom, 6pm AEST (10am local)

First Test: October 9-13, Kingsmead Stadium, Durban, 6:30pm AEDT (9:30am local)

Second Test: October 18-22, St George's Park, Gqeberha, 7pm AEDT (10am local)

Third Test: October 27-31, Newlands, Cape Town, 7:30pm AEDT (10:30am local)

Australia Test squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Matthew Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster