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Travis set to turn heads at Worcester

South Australia skipper well placed to make a big splash when the County Championship season begins

Travis Head is expected to prove "an exciting fit" as he prepares for his first match with county side Worcestershire in the UK's County Championship Division One on Friday.

Head signed on with the county in February and looms as a quality addition to a young squad, and the left-hander will be desperate for a productive season to boost his claims for a spot on Australia's 2019 Ashes tour.

Head made 145 in his penultimate Sheffield Shield appearance and scores of 31 and 47 in his final showing, and having flown into England last Friday, he was set to take part in a one-day friendly against Gloucestershire that was ultimately washed out.

Long earmarked as a future Test player, the South Australia captain is coming off the best Shield season of his career (738 runs at 46 with two hundreds) and will slot into a Worcestershire side used to hosting Australians after John Hastings and Nathan Lyon featured at New Road last year.

"When I played for Tea Tree Gully in Adelaide, I was lucky enough to play one game with Travis," allrounder George Rhodes told the club's website.

"He is a very good allrounder, came across as a nice bloke and I think he will fit into the dressing room really well.

"He is quite young and has a lot to prove in his career – like many of us at Worcestershire really – so I think it will be an exciting fit.

"Hopefully we can learn things from him, and the way he goes about things, and it will be exciting to watch him bat."

Heroic Head's lone-hand century in vain

Head played one match for Yorkshire in August 2016, making a first-innings half-century, but a full northern summer of county – with the exception of his likely involvement in Australia's limited-overs campaigns in England and Zimbabwe – looms as a shrewd move for the 24-year-old, who has toured with the Test squad in the past but is still to earn a Baggy Green, falling behind the likes of Glenn Maxwell and Peter Handscomb in the pecking order of middle-order options.

After he was overlooked for Australia's Test tour of India last February-March, then head coach Darren Lehmann predicted his time in the five-day format was a matter of when, not if.

"He's impressed us immensely with the way he's adapted to international cricket," Lehmann said.

"We expect him in the not-too-distant future to get his chance in Test cricket."

Worcestershire skipper Joe Leach noted Head's strong finish to the Shield season, suggesting runs with Worcestershire could well turn the heads of Australia's National Selection Panel.

"Even before what has happened this last two or three weeks, he was earmarked for one of those Ashes spots if he could score enough runs," Leach told the club's website.

"I'm sure if he has a good season for us, he is going to put his name right in the hat."