Bowlers pitch up on greener decks allowing me to score and get busy if they miss a bit, divulges Head

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Australian all-format star Travis Head has offered support for the spicy wickets being produced in Australia, admitting he felt more comfortable batting on green tracks over flat ones. The veteran also lauded praise on the likes of Steve Smith and Joe Root that keep the scorecard ticking.

Australia are set to begin a highly anticipated defence of the Ashes in the less than three weeks' time with the first Test scheduled from November 11 at the Perth Stadium. With questions being raised around Usman Khawaja, the identity of whose opening partner is still unknown, and Cameron Green returning to the Test setup after a spade of injuries, the hosts' batting line-up of late has appeared its most fragile in recent years. However, in Steve Smith and Travis Head, they still have two cornerstones of unit intact and raring to go, with the latter's counter attacking expected to be a key foil for the Bazballers at the other end. It helps that the 31-year-old has revealed a proclivity for spicy decks, the kind Australia have increasingly produced during home summers since the turn of the decade.

"I probably enjoy batting on those sort of wickets. The flatter wickets, with the grind, that more so challenge technique, I think, over longer periods of time to eke out runs has never probably come as natural to me with being a stroke player and wanting to get on with it. And the slower, flat wickets probably don't tend to that. But fast-paced pitches that nip, you can maybe get away with a few things," Head told ESPNcricinfo.

"Obviously the way I want to play is if they present opportunities to score, you score. So when they're greener, they pitch up a little bit more and a bit fuller, and the style that I play, if they miss a little bit, I'm able to hopefully score and get busy," he added.

Australia is the only country where Head has a career average over 50, while striking at over 70. Over the past four seasons, those numbers read an even more impressive 54.64 at a strike rate of 88.90, by far the best from his team on both accounts. This includes a player of the series performance the last time England came Down Under and endured a 4-0 hammering, accruing 357 runs in just 415 deliveries with two centuries and a fifty. Ironically, batting averages in Australia during this duration have dipped in record-breaking ways, registering over 30 only once since 2020 and reaching 24.91 last year, the second lowest mark over a calendar year in over three decades.

The pitches for the start of the Sheffield Shield season and the ongoing ODI series against India have indicated things will be no different for the Ashes, with Perth, Melbourne, and Hobart recently producing first-class fixtures where neither team managed to surpass 260.

"It's a run based game. You see some of the great players, like Steve Smith, Joe Root, you blink and they're on 30 or 40. And that's something that I've always appreciated, and definitely these wickets, you know that you potentially have got one with your name on it. You can still play well. You can still get runs. Sometimes you've got that go about it in different ways. But ultimately, it's a game where you go try and score as many as you can," Head concluded.

Head is slated to play the third ODI against India in Sydney on Saturday followed by a five-match T20I series in the run-up to the Ashes.