Australian big-hitter Travis Head on Monday asserted there is no “divide” between his team’s struggling batters and its potent bowling attack as they geared up to bounce back in the pink-ball Test against India, starting here on December 6. Australia suffered an embarrassing 295-run loss as their batters struggled to cope with the bouncy Perth pitch, managing just 104 & 238 in their two innings. On day three of the Test, pacer Josh Hazlewood, who picked four wickets in first essay, made a comment that seemed to suggest frustration with the team’s batters. triggering speculation of tensions in the dressing room.
Head said there was no reason to doubt the dressing room dynamics.
“It can be put to bed. We hold high expectations for both sides (batting and bowling) and it’s a very individualised sport,” Head said.
“So batters, we want to hold our own – we know how good our bowlers have been for us in the past and they’ve got us out of trouble a lot. As a batting group, we know that if we get enough runs on the board, we put ourselves in a great position.
“As a batter myself, I try to take a whole lot of pride in what I do, and knowing that if I can set it up for the big boys, that they can knock it down for us, so definitely no divide,” he explained.
Hazlewood was questioned about Australia’s approach to day four, given they were 12/3 in pursuit of 534.
“You probably have to ask one of the batters that question probably, I am sort of relaxing and trying to get a bit of treatment, and I am looking mostly to next Test,” Hazlewood had said.
The Australian top-order comprising the likes of Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne crumbled at Perth.
Labuschagnem, in particular, has been woefully out of form and several former players have called for his exclusion from the side but Head backed him to get some big runs.
“Knowing Marnus, he would have worked on a few things over the last few days and it would have been hard to probably keep him out of the nets,” he said.
“No doubt over the next few days we’ll see him working hard again. He’s a guy that has played well over a long period of time. He would like some more runs — so would everyone.” Trailing the five match series 0-1, Australia have their backs against the wall as the race for the World Test Championship final has also intensified.
However, Head backed his team to bounce back from the horror show in Perth.
“This team has dealt with adversity well. The small amount that we have had in the last three or four years, we have played well,” he said.
“We didn’t have a very good week. That’s fine. But we have got four more opportunities to do it, we will crack on as we do, as we have done for the last few years.
“Over the last couple of years, there’s a lot of teams that lost the first Test or gone down in the series and brought it back and played really well,” he added.
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