Head’s counter-punching ton swings day one honours

What had loomed as a bitter return to Blundstone Arena after a clatter of early wickets switched as suddenly as it did unexpectedly at the hand of Travis Head, who breezily lifted Australia to ascendancy on day one of the fifth Vodafone Ashes Test.

Head went to the wicket with his team in dire strife at 3-12, as memories of the humbling Australia endured at the same venue's most recent Test match against South Africa in 2016 stirred to life.

However, the former vice-captain snatched the initiative in a brutally calculated innings that brought his second hundred of a breakthrough summer and lifted his team to 6-241 when rain forced stumps to be called prematurely this evening.

The 28-year-old forged crucial partnerships with Marnus Labuschagne (44 off 53 balls) and Cameron Green (74 off 109) on his way to reaching 101 having missed the previous Test in Sydney after returning a positive COVID-19 result.

While the left-hander's remarkable hundred in a session in the first Test at the Gabba still stands as the benchmark for this bowler-dominated series, the circumstances he faced today plus the predicament his team faced when he set out makes his knock off 113 balls faced an innings of equally rare quality.

Not only had he seen the three most experienced batters in Australia's line-up – David Warner, Steve Smith and Usman Khawaja – succumb inside the first 10 overs, he also witnessed Labuschagne lose his wicket in a most bizarre manner, even allowing for the world's top-ranked batter's eccentricities.

Such was the level of assistance England's all-seam attack was able to eke from the 8cm of rye grass covering the Hobart pitch, Labuschagne took to batting outside his crease to try and negate the movement and get well across his stumps to guard against the edged catches that had accounted for his top-order teammates.

However, he walked so far to the off-side he was suddenly wrong-footed by Stuart Broad's shrewd ploy to fire a delivery at the batter's right heel and – in his panic to get bat or leg in the ball's path – Labuschagne found himself in so hopeless a tangle he simply pitched forward like a novice ice skater.

Broad could scarcely conceal his mirthful disbelief as the ball smashed into the unprotected stumps leaving Australia 4-83, but that proved the tourists' final moment of joy before another misting of rain cut the day short.

Not only did England's ensuing 37 overs in favourable conditions yield almost 160 runs as Head and Green flayed anything loose, of which there was a steady supply, they were rendered a bowler short when Ollie Robinson succumbed to back stiffness at the start of the second session.

They also paid a price for dropping Labuschagne before he had scored, when Zak Crawley dived in front of his captain at first slip and shelled a chance that might have vastly altered the day's narrative.

As it was, Labuschagne and Head took it upon themselves to take the fight to the bowlers who had no answer once the ball stopped moving off the pitch and instead went skidding to the fence with ease and regularity.

Head reached his century shortly before tea, becoming just the seventh Australian number five to score multiple hundreds in an Ashes series although ex-captain Steve Waugh achieved that honour in three separate campaigns.

He departed a ball after the rousing celebration from the crowd of 9,000 when he miscued an attempted flick over mid-wicket that lobbed to mid-on, but by that stage Australia were 5-204 and some distance from the drama that engulfed them at day's beginning.

That was when, despite more than five years elapsing since Hobart last hosted a Test match, it seemed as if little had changed in the interim.

Just as the previous fixture between Australia and South Africa began amid gloomy conditions in November 2016 – and quickly descended into one of the bleakest on-field efforts in the men's team's recent history – so was today's start delayed by an hour due to mizzling rain.

When play got underway in the island state's maiden pink ball Test, the similarity to that South Africa game – in which Australia were fired out for 85 inside 50 overs on the opening day – became even more unmistakable.

The fortune that had evaded Joe Root at previous coin tosses this summer paid him a belated visit, with the England skipper calling correctly and embracing the distinctly British ambience by opting to unleash his bowlers.

Within 10 overs, it was being hailed as a stroke of genius.

On a pitch that more closely resembled Headingley in May than Hobart in mid-summer, England's seamers found the length they had been unable to hit with the pink ball in Adelaide last month and reaped repeated benefits.

Having soaked up 22 balls in search for his first run in a gripping battle against his regular tormentor Broad, Warner fell to England's other new-ball bowler Robinson for a duck, edging to second slip.

The visitors had once again undertaken a radical reshuffle of their bowling line-up, with James Anderson left out amid reports he was suffering a slight injury niggle and left-arm slow bowler Jack Leach deemed surplus to requirements on the grassy deck.

The pair were among the five changes wrought by England coach and selector Chris Silverwood with two of those – keeper Jos Buttler (finger) and batter Jonny Bairtsow (thumb) – enforced, while out-of-form opener Haseeb Hameed surrendered his place to Rory Burns who had been dropped after the second Test.

It initially appeared England's calamitous tour was bound for another forgettable chapter when Broad followed his first ball of the match by landing chest-first on the pitch after his front foot slipped on the damp surface.

But not only did the veteran seamer soon secure his footing, he added the scalp of in-form Khawaja who had been installed as opener in place of Marcus Harris only to follow his back-to-back centuries in Sydney last week with a score of six today.

Khawaja had exercised keen judgement with the ball moving extravagantly off the verdant surface, but when Broad induced a mistake with the chance safely pouched by Root at slip, the cost of their earlier blemish with Labuschagne on 0 seemed to have been minimised.

Even Crawley, who had dived in front of his captain to squander that chance off Robinson, quickly redeemed himself by holding on to the catch offered by Steve Smith who also failed to score.

In finding himself squared-up by Robinson, who vindicated his recall by looming as his team's trump card in favourable conditions, Smith posted just his second Test duck in more than five years, and his first in an Ashes match since the opening game of the 2013-14 campaign.

It also represented the first time in the 244 innings in which they had both turned out for their country in Tests that neither Warner nor Smith had contributed a run.

At that stage of the first hour, with the electronic scoreboard showing a ghostly 3-12 against the heavy skies, England must have suspected nearly everything they touched was falling into place.

And then, just as suddenly and in keeping with their third winless campaign in as many Ashes visits, it all started to fall apart.

Labuschagne and Head navigated their way safely to the first drinks break, at which they decided the best form of defence was to counter-attack which they did successfully as England's bowlers lapsed back into bad habits.

The ball was treated with such heavy treatment by the Australia pair who rattled on ten boundaries in their 50-run partnership it was replaced after 21 overs after it was deemed to have sustained irreparable damage when Head clubbed it into the boundary signage.

The replacement ball accounted for Labuschagne who became the second player to be spreadeagled across the pitch, although in vastly more costly circumstances.

But England's fast-track from delight to despair was perfectly encapsulated by the sight of Robinson – their most threatening weapon in the opening session – barely able to get the ball to the other end in his first over after the dinner break.

His lower-back issue left him unable to bowl above 115kph and having left the field for treatment after that ineffectual over, he was not seen at the bowling crease for the remainder of the day.

Rarely has the deceleration of one team's fortunes while the momentum swung violently to the other been so graphically, and tellingly, obvious.

Vodafone Men's Ashes

Squads

Australia: Pat Cummins (c), Steve Smith (vc), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner

England: Joe Root (c), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Dom Bess, Sam Billings, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Schedule

First Test: Australia won by nine wickets

Second Test: Australia won by 275 runs

Third Test: Australia won by an innings and 14 runs

Fourth Test: Match drawn

Fifth Test: January 14-18, Blundstone Arena