Even as Ravichandran Ashwin announced his retirement after the third Test ended in a draw, there was another suspense brewing in the Australian camp. Their key player of the series, Travis Head appeared to be slightly restricted in the second innings while batting and he also didn’t take the field in India’s brief chase that lasted only 2.1 overs. This triggered speculation of the cricketer being injured while many reported that he suffered a groin injury only for the Cricket Australia Spokesperson to emphatically deny the claim.
Australia skipper Pat Cummins, in the post-match press conference, cleared the confusion and expressed confidence that the left-handed batter will be absolutely fine in time for the fourth Test in Melbourne. He also informed that Head suffered a tight quad on the final day of Brisbane Test and that him not taking the field was just a precautionary measure.
“Trav, he’ll be fine, it’s a bit of a tight quad, but he’ll be fine for Melbourne,” Cummins said. Australia cannot afford another injury as Josh Hazlewood has already been ruled out of the series. He walked off midway through the first innings at the Gabba with Cummins and Mitchell Starc taking up the workload in order to skittle India as early as possible.
Opening up on Hazlewood’s injury who had already missed one Test this series, Cummins said, “It’s really tough. It’s been the story, outside of last summer, of the last few summers. The extra layer to that [is] he’s probably one of the most disciplined, professional sportspeople you could meet [with] the way he trains and prepares. When he’s at home he’s in the gym every second day or every day, doing whatever it takes to try and minimise injuries. Think that’s an extra kind of blow, knowing how much he’s put into his body in the last few years to try and play as many Tests as he can.
“It’s one of those [injuries] you can’t really predict, but we value him. Unfortunately, he’ll miss this series. I don’t know exactly when he’ll be right to go again but even in the little snippets we’ve seen this series it shows how much we rate him and how much of an impact he can have.” Meanwhile, Australia are set to announce the squad for the last two Test matches against India in a couple of days’ time with the focus being the top three – Usman Khawaja, Nathan McSweeney and Marnus Labuschagne – who have struggled for runs this summer.
