The masterstroke that defined the Ashes series

Travis Head

England may well have lost this Ashes anyway. They have barely done anything to suggest otherwise over the past month.

But rather than English preparation decisions or selection meetings, was it a conversation in the Australia dressing room at tea on day two of the first Test that first set the course of this series?

Australia needed an opener in Perth when Usman Khawaja was struck down by back spasms and up went Travis Head's hand.

"It can't be that hard, let's get after them," he said.

Promoted from the middle order despite Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne having both filled the role before, he proceeded to thrash one of the great Ashes centuries and there began England's death by a thousand Travis Head cuts.

In striking his second hundred of this series on day three of the third Test in Adelaide, Head all-but confirmed the home of the urn until the next Ashes in 2027.

He has surely also ended any debate about his batting position for the remainder of this series and beyond.

The solution to Australia's problem of replacing David Warner was sitting in plain sight with a mullet and bristly Australian moustache.

Head's struggles before this series - only one score of 40 or more in 20 innings going back to June - are now a distant memory.

Four days training before the series - something the most laidback of 31-year-old's said was "unprecedented" for him - helped find his rhythm and surely banish any doubts.

"When you have a big gap in Test cricket and you're lying in bed a couple of nights before, you're like, 'Can I do it?'" he said.

"Can you still produce it? Can you, as a cricketer each year, keep rolling out good scores in big moments? It's not going to get much bigger than this."

That last point is the most relevant when it comes to Head.

The ultimate big game player, he now has four Ashes hundreds to go with another in the 2023 World Cup final and the World Test Championship final earlier that year.

When Australia battled desperately to win back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy from India last year, Head made scores of 89, 140 and 159 in the first three Tests.

Former India coach Ravi Shastri once gave the South Australian the nickname 'Head-ache' and England's players must be at the point of wishing they could draw the curtains, lie down and close their eyes in a cool room.

They witnessed the birth of Head's reinvention as an uber aggressive batter in 2021 when he crashed a 148-ball 152 in the first Test of the last Ashes series down under.

Since then Head strikes at 80.20 runs per 100 balls, compared to 49.65 in the first part of his career, in a switch in style almost unprecedented across Test cricket's history.

An unintended consequence of Head's move to the top in this series has been England having to alter their plans to the left-hander.

In 2023 they had a clear plan, with 52% of deliveries bowled to Head by pacemen pitched 10m or shorter to target Head's weakness of balls fizzing around his helmet.

This time, because they now have the new ball in hand, England have been forced to push the ball up but have only fed his strength on the cut, not helped by their inability to hold a line.

For much of the afternoon they resorted to trying to bore Head out with a field spread far and wide - a tactic that must have hurt Ben Stokes to the core.

"I used to coach against Travis Head for Western Australia and you do not bowl to his cut shot," Head's former Australia coach Justin Langer said to reporters.

"His wagonwheel is completely behind point. It was either England couldn't execute their plan or the plans were poor."