Follow UsAustralia’s stand-in skipper Steven Smith has confirmed that Travis Head will open the innings alongside Usman Khawaja in the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle, starting on January 29 (Wednesday). The left-hander will replace dynamic Sam Konstas, who made an impressive debut against India in the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
“Trav will go to the top, outside of that I think it will be pretty stable. I don't see it being a great deal of change from that. The selectors liked what they saw in India when he (Head) had that opportunity. He got after the new ball, scored quickly and put the pressure on them straight away, so I guess similar thinking here,” said Smith.
Head replaced injured David Warner in the final two Tests during Australia’s tour of India in 2023 and slammed 180 runs at an average of 60 and a strike rate of 67.7. With him moving up the order, there will be a vacancy at No.5.
Smith, however, didn’t confirm Australia’s playing XI, hinting that Konstas could still play in the middle-order. Apart from Konstas, Australia also have two more options in Nathan McSweeney and Josh Inglis. The latter is yet to make his Test debut, while McSweeney struggled as an opener against India but made his reputation batting in the middle-order for South Australia.
Talking about Konstas, Smith said: “He's going to have a lot of practice if he doesn't play, which in itself is great for development. I only have to think back to 2013 (in India) where I didn't play the first two Tests, and just the amount of balls I was hitting in the nets and the skills I was able to develop from facing loads of net bowlers and things like that. So whether he plays or not, I think it's going to be a wonderful experience for him. He's going to learn a lot."
Smith also said that left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann, who recently got a surgery on his fractured right thumb, will most likely be available for selection. "Apparently the surgeon's done an incredible job for him to be able to field and do some of the things he (Kuhnemann) has been able to do the last couple of days, we're a bit gobsmacked," said Smith.
"Either he's a tremendous actor or he's got great pain tolerance, but he's ticked all the boxes and should be ready to go.
"We'd love to name a team as early as possible but things can change really quickly in this part of the world. So we won't name a team yet, we'll wait and see what we get and probably the morning of the game go from there. The sun hasn't been out very much lately so we'll have another look at the wicket and then name the team at the toss."