A fresh-faced England side came undone against a more storied Australian XI in the opening T20, with Travis Head’s powerplay blast setting up a 28-run win for the visitors.
The hosts fielded three debutants – Jamie Overton, Jordan Cox and Jacob Bethell – but three significant figures in the Australian game largely wrote the story. To begin with, there was the thunder of Head, his 23-ball 59 setting an imposing target of 180 that could have been even stronger had England not enjoyed a resurgence through spin.
When it came to the reply, Adam Zampa’s tweak proved difficult to navigate, his leggies choking up the middle overs and accounting for two wickets. And when England finally found hope, with Liam Livingstone crunching a few to get himself to 37, Josh Hazlewood re-emerged to hit the stumps and make it 108 for six. A hush greeted every Australian catch on an evening with a winter-like chill, this new-look England outfit unable to make enough noise in response.
Much has changed since the last time Australia’s white-ball team visited England, during the lockdown summer of four years ago. Back then Eoin Morgan’s band of 50-over world-beaters were the ones to follow, Aaron Finch’s men the ones looking to prove themselves.
Australia have since won two World Cups to become the short-form experts. In Southampton they carried that alpha energy as Head, the moustachioed Ahmedabad party-pooper, opened up a week on from a cool 25-ball 80 against Scotland.
Head taking on Jofra Archer was an early thrill, the quick making the left-hander hop about, edge away and look uncomfortable. But this is Head’s great trick: to deceive you with that slogger set-up, revealing his flaws only to then respond with a flurry of axe-swings, the eyes carrying the hands. And then, all of a sudden, he’s won the match and tournament, too.
The southpaw put four dominant Archer deliveries to the side and responded with three boundaries in the quick’s second over. But the real brutality was reserved for Sam Curran, the all-rounder searching for rhythm in international cricket after a difficult couple of World Cups. Head wasn’t going to offer him a cuddle and words of affirmation. Thirty runs came off Curran’s first over, every ball a boundary, Head’s arms free to thrash it square of the wicket. A monster pull off Saqib Mahmood took Head to a 19-ball half-century.
The final ball of the powerplay made Head finally relent, with Cox holding on at deep square leg off Mahmood, the opener’s destruction having taken Australia to 86 for one. With the ball running nicely on to the blade of the other opener, Matt Short, Australia were ascendant. “They came out swinging, they came out hot,” said England’s stand-in captain Phil Salt. “Fair play to Heady, he’s had a great two years. You’ve got to be very precise with where you’re bowling at him, he’s not very conventional, loses his front side very early, and creates a few different swing planes from a technical perspective.”
Fortunately for Salt there was joy to be found in slowing the game down. Spin ended the prospect of a genuinely scary total, first through Adil Rashid. His leg-break slid on to dismiss Mitch Marsh for two before Livingstone capitalised on a sweeping epidemic among the visitors: Short found Curran in the deep, Marcus Stoinis missed a reverse to fall leg-before, Tim David’s conventional attempt led to a first-baller. Bethell got a go with his left-arm variety for three overs but the elder tweakers did the job.
The quicks, after their early misery, returned to provide a lights show. Curran’s slower ball accounted for Josh Inglis’s stumps; Archer put himself on a hat-trick, his second wicket a fizzing yorker. Mahmood, playing his first international in 18 months, went full to go through Cameron Green. Head’s brutal beginning had briefly been forgotten.
But Australia’s final total still looked pretty, turning even finer as Hazlewood ran in with his usual red-ball nip in the white-ball game. He had the early wicket of Will Jacks and troubled Cox’s inside-edge.
Cox’s first international innings wasn’t to last long, ended by a stunning David catch. A leg-side swat made the ball fly high but the fielder’s eyes stuck to it as the legs raced in from mid-on to deep midwicket, the sliding effort ending the batter’s stay on 17. Salt, like Head, perished at the end of the powerplay but England had been unable to cause carnage; at 46 for three, their platform was relatively minimal.
In the same way Rashid offers England a guarantee of guile, Australia have Zampa. His usual stump-to-stump mayhem meant Bethell’s first England knock was limited to a six-ball two. At 52 for four, the game had gone. Livingstone briefly offered an alternative headline, that of an inspired all-round display from his promotion to No 4, but Hazlewood returned to prompt a drag-on.
