Brisbane: Swashbuckling Australia batter Travis Head became the first batter in the history of Test cricket to bag a king pair and then score centuries at the same venue in a calendar year. This is Head’s third Test century against India with first coming in the 2023 World Test Championship (WTC) final, the Adelaide Test (Pink ball Test) and now the Gabba Test.
Head achieved a rare record during the third Test for the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2024 clash between India and Australia at the Gabba here on Sunday, December 15, 2024. He also became the only sixth player to register a pair and then score a century at the same venue in the same calendar year after Pakistan’s Wazir Mohammad, West Indies’ Alwyn Kallicharan, Marvan Atapattu of Sri Lanka, Ramnaresh Sarwan of West Indies, and Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful.
Head was batting on 109 runs off 113 balls, including 13 boundaries, at the tea break. He scored at will, rotated the strike nicely when he wasn’t crunching them to the boundary, and notched up his ninth Test century. He came in when Australia were reeling at 75/3, and the game was certainly in the balance, but his century has completely turned things in Australia’s favour. Australia are now currently in the driver’s seat, having scored 234 runs for the loss of only three wickets.
Notably, this is fourth century across ODIs and Tests which has left a huge impact on the game and series. His terrific run against India started when he played 152 runs in the WTC final, followed by a match-winning century in the ODI World Cup final. Since then, he has been unstoppable, at least against India. He then smashed a quickfire fifty against India in the T20 World Cup 2024 and took his side over the line. He didn’t stop there and has scored two back-to-back centuries in Adelaide and now at the Gabba in the ongoing BGT series.
Apart from this, he has also completed 1,000 runs in Test cricket at an average of 53.05 against India including three hundred and four fifties.
Travis Head last seven innings vs India in Tests:
- 90(163)
- 163(174)
- 18(27)
- 11(13)
- 89(101)
- 140(141)
- 51*(72)
- Bagging a Pair & a century at a venue in the same calendar year
Wazir Mohammad – Port of Spain – 1958
Alwyn Kallicharan – Port of Spain – 1974
Marvan Atapattu – Colombo SSC – 2001
Ramnaresh Sarwan – Kingston – 2004
Mohammad Ashraful – Chattogram MA Aziz – 2004
Travis Head – Brisbane Gabba – 2024 - Travis Head at the Gabba in Tests
84(187)
24(29)
152(148)
92(96)
0(1)
0(1)
0(1)
101*(115)
