Travis Head helps Australia to T20 liftoff against inexperienced England | Cricket

The fresh-faced England team lost to the more experienced Australian side in the opening match of 2018, with Travis Head hitting a powerplay and delivering a decisive strike to secure a 28-run victory for the visitors.

The hosts fielded three debutants – Jamie Overton, Jordan Cox and Jacob Bethell – but three major figures in the Australian game largely wrote the story. For starters, there was the thunder of Head, his 23-ball 59 setting an imposing target of 180 that could have been even stronger had England not experienced a revival through spin.

When it came to the reply, Adam Zampa’s tweak proved difficult to navigate, his leggies stifling the middle overs and accounting for two wickets. And when England finally found hope, with Liam Livingstone smashing a couple to get themselves to 37, Josh Hazlewood emerged again to hit the stumps and make it 108 for six. A hush greeted each Australian catch on a night with a wintry chill, this new England outfit couldn’t make enough noise in response.

Much has changed since the last time Australia’s white-ball team visited England, during the lockdown summer four years ago. Back then, Eoin Morgan’s group of 50-over world-beaters were the ones to follow, Aaron Finch’s men the ones out to prove themselves.

Australia have won two World Cups since then and are now the short-form experts. At Southampton they carried that alpha energy with them when Head, the moustachioed Ahmedabad party-pooper, opened a week after a cool 25-ball 80 against Scotland.

Head taking on Jofra Archer was an early sensation, the speedy left-hander skipping, running and looking awkward. But this is Head’s great trick: to fool you with that slogger formation, to expose his flaws and then respond with a flurry of axe-swinging, the eyes carrying the hands. And then, suddenly, he’s won the match and the tournament too.

The southpaw lobbed four dominant Archer deliveries to the side and responded with three boundaries in the second over of the quick. But the real bravado was reserved for Sam Curran, the all-rounder looking for a rhythm in international cricket after a couple of tough World Cups. Head wouldn’t offer him a hug and words of reassurance. Thirty runs came from Curran’s first over, every ball a boundary, Head’s arms free to hit square of the wicket. A monstrous pull-off from Saqib Mahmood took Head to a half-century from 19 balls.

The final ball of the powerplay saw Head finally relent, with Cox holding on to deep square leg from Mahmood, the opener’s destruction taking Australia to 86 for one. With the ball running nicely onto the blade of the other opener, Matt Short, Australia were on the rise.

“They came out swinging, they came out hot,” said England stand-in captain Phil Salt. “Fair play to Heady, he’s had two great years. You’ve got to be very precise with where you go with him, he’s not very conventional, loses his front side very early and creates a few different swing planes from a technical perspective.”

Fortunately for Salt, there was joy to be found in slowing the game down. Spin ended the prospect of a truly terrifying total, first through Adil Rashid. His leg-break slid through to dismiss Mitch Marsh for two before Livingstone capitalised on an epidemic among the visitors: Short found Curran in the deep, Marcus Stoinis missed a reverse to fall leg-before, Tim David’s conventional effort led to a first-baller. Bethell had a chance with his left-arm variety for three overs, but the older tweakers did the work.

The quicks, after their early misery, returned to provide a light show. Curran’s slower ball was good to Josh Inglis’ stumps; Archer set himself for a hat-trick, his second wicket a fizzing yorker. Mahmood, playing his first international for 18 months, went all out to pass Cameron Green. Head’s brutal start was momentarily forgotten.

But Australia’s final total still looked good, and became even better when Hazlewood nipped into the white-ball game with his usual red-ball swipe, taking the early wicket of Will Jacks and causing trouble for Cox’s inside edge.

Cox’s first international innings did not last long, ending with a stunning David catch. A leg-side swat sent the ball flying high, but the fielder’s eyes remained fixed on it as the legs raced from mid-on to deep midwicket, the sliding effort ending the batter’s stay on 17. Salt, like Head, went down at the end of the powerplay, but England had failed to inflict carnage; at 46 for three, their platform was relatively minimal.

In the same way that Rashid offers England a guarantee of guile, Australia have Zampa. His usual stump-to-stump mayhem meant that Bethell’s first England knock was restricted to a six-ball two. At 52 for four, the match was over. Livingstone briefly offered an alternative headline, that of an inspired all-round display of his promotion to No. 4, but Hazlewood returned to provoke a drag-on.