Travis Head hasn’t had the best of starts to an IPL campaign by his lofty standards. Since making his re-entry into the league as a part of SRH, he scored 567 and 374 runs in 2024 and 2025.
Despite coming into the ongoing campaign on the back of his Ashes heroics, Head has struggled to get going. In six matches, he has scored 143 runs at an average of 23.83 and a strike-rate of 144.44. Against CSK, the Aussie opener scored 23 runs off 20 balls, failing to capitalise on the start he got.
| SRH vs CSK Highlights | Scorecard |
Ambati Rayudu and Aaron Finch dissected what’s actually gone wrong so far with Head from a technical aspect.
WHAT’S GOING WRONG?
Rayudu said that Head is focusing more on trying to hit on the onside rather sticking to his strength, which is to attack the offside. He felt the bowlers are also bowling a bit fuller not allowing him the room to play the shots freely.
“I think he’s waiting for the short length ball to hit on the onside. I think that’s where he thought his weakness was, and he maybe thought he should improve hitting more on the onside, and that’s where I feel he has just stopped focusing on what his actual strength is, and that is to hit through the offside.”
“I think even the bowlers have started doing that, just bowled slightly fuller, maybe starting from the leg stump, not giving him too much room,” said Rayudu.
Finch felt that the use of slower deliveries has meant that Head isn’t being given one particular pace to work with, which is one of the SRH batter’s biggest strengths.
“I think the fact that teams are now bowling slower balls really early, so they’re not allowing him to line up one particular pace, that’s one of his great strengths. You think of how damaging he is in Test cricket. His wheelhouse is when you try and bowl what we determine. A good length ball, about 4th stump, so that’s where he’s got so many options, whereas now they’re not giving it to him, they’re they’re going really full or they’re going slow, they’re taking it away from him,” said Finch.
The former Aussie skipper also feels the constant mixing up of deliveries has also hampered Head’s form this campaign.
“So just the constant mixing up of deliveries to ,not allow him to just line you up is so crucial. Cause you know once he starts lining you up, he keeps coming so hard, doesn’t he? And that’s one of his great strengths, but it just hasn’t quite clicked so far,” said Finch.
SRH take on DC in their next game on Tuesday, April 21.
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