Rohit Sharma's half-hearted captaincy approach leaves India on backfoot after Travis Head's onslaught

It’s official now, if it wasn’t earlier. India have a giant Travis Head-ache, pardon the pun, a headache to which there seems no panacea. For the fourth time in the last 18 months and the second time in as many Test innings this series, the left-hander has been a thorn in India’s side. Not just a niggling, annoying, irritating thorn, but a destructive, deeply entrenched one that appears resistant to all forms of eviction attempts.

Travis Head’s love affair with Indian bowling continues

A love affair with the Indian bowling that began in the final of the World Test Championship at The Oval in June last year and spilled over to the 50-over World Cup title clash in Ahmedabad in five months later continued in Adelaide, where he smashed 140 off 141 – yes, you read that right – in a pink-ball outing, which he backed up with 152 of the most bruising runs in just 160 deliveries at the Gabba on Sunday.

Head is a fantastic counter-attacking batter, of that there is little doubt. In the last couple of years, he has started to back himself, back his ability to come hard at the opposition, no matter the game situation, no matter how bowler-friendly the conditions might be. There is no great secret to how he builds his innings – by staying a little leg-side of the ball so that he can access the off-side, clearly his favoured scoring area.

His leg-side play has improved tremendously but he is most at home thrashing the ball square on the off-side when it is pitched short and just a little wide, or going with his hands when it’s pitched up a little further.

India knew, therefore, what to expect. They had been at the receiving end of 163 in 174 balls in the WTC final, 137 in 120 in Ahmedabad. And 89 off 101 in the second innings in Perth last month, which almost slipped by unnoticed in the euphoria of the 295-run win in the first Test. If nothing else, that knock should have put India on notice.

And while they must have planned and prepared and worked on ways and means to halt the Head juggernaut, India have been singularly helpless when he has come out all guns blazing, happy to take his chances and ride his luck and instantaneously transfer the balance of power.

Except in Perth when he was absent on paternity leave, Rohit Sharma has had the unenviable task of bearing the brunt of Head’s repeated onslaughts as captain. In Adelaide last week, one had to tip the hat to Head for his insouciance; because he doesn’t hold back, his thrashes invariably sailed over the close fielders and sped away to the boundary. But in Brisbane, India could and should have done a lot better, armed as they were with greater knowledge of the potential for damage that lies in his power-packed frame.

To start with, Rohit did plenty of things right. Given Head’s penchant for clattering the off-side boundary square, he started with a boundary rider when the South Australian walked in at 75 for three. At The Oval, when he joined Steve Smith, Australia were 76 for three and the two added 285. Here, it was only 241, but Smith hadn’t tasted three-figures for a long time and was under some extraneous pressure. India, and Akash Deep especially, were desperately unlucky that the former captain survived at least a dozen play and misses in his first 50 or so balls, but Head, well, he was in a league of his own.

Rohit Sharma’s ‘Head’ ache

Unlike in the last Test when Rohit didn’t give Jasprit Bumrah a go early on at Head, the captain brought his strike bowler back within a quarter of an hour of the batter’s arrival at the crease, even though his spearhead had bowled five fabulous overs in a terrific first spell that netted him the scalps of Usman Khawaja and Nathan McSweeney. Head immediately asserted himself with a cover-driven four as Bumrah strove for fullness in length and any possible swing the 37-over old ball might offer.

After lunch, as India went shorter, Head used the ramp to excellent effect, sometimes swaying back and taking the ball even off the leg-stump line. Rohit occasionally used a third-man for that stroke, but not with any great conviction or regularity. He also didn’t exhort his bowlers enough to bowl a round-the-wicket line. It was from that angle that Harshit Rana produced a peach in the first innings in Perth, a delivery that swung into the left-hander and then nibbled away to bend around his outside edge and hit the off-stump.

Maybe it was a dream delivery hard to reprise, but that angle meant with the ball coming in, Head would have to take additional risks to go through his favourite hitting arc. The reluctance of the Indian pace attack to go round was a little baffling, especially given that the other angle played right into Head’s hands and allowed him to keep scoring rapidly.

And that’s the thing with Head. He doesn’t dawdle around at the crease and because he scores so quickly, he immediately pushes the opposition into the defensive. Half of Rohit’s energies were channelled towards stopping him from scoring, which meant only half were directed towards getting him out. With Head, that’s not a paying balance at all.

Rohit also allowed things to drift a little when the Head-Smith alliance grew in stature and proportion. True, with the pitch easing up and the margin for error minimal, there is only so much he could have done. Bumrah, Deep and Mohammed Siraj bowled their hearts out, but without meaning to sound blase, that’s what they are expected to do, aren’t they?

They still couldn’t hit the areas that could trouble Head consistently enough – a fourth-stump line at a five-to six-metre length that would test his footwork, his hands and his instincts, or a shorter, into-the-body angle at chest or shoulder height that would cramp him up and keep him quiet, forcing him to go looking for shots outside of his comfort zone if he wanted to keep scoring at a furious rate.

Perhaps his own lack of runs is weighing Rohit down, because he wasn’t quite the expressive, animated captain he was during the England series at the top of the year or even against Bangladesh in September-October. He was also somewhat handicapped b y a left leg injury to Siraj which meant he had to be handled with care, which also then translated to Bumrah and Deep having to be conserved a touch.

Nitish Kumar Reddy and Ravindra Jadeja’s propensity to go for a bouquet of boundaries added to Rohit’s discomfort. At various stages, he might have wondered if he would have been better off batting first. These aren’t great times for Rohit, the batter; it’s possible that that lack of confidence has infected his captaincy as well.