Head backs Australia’s bowlers to surprise England

LONDON: Australia batsman Travis Head is confident a new-look bowling attack will have the “firepower” to trouble England in an upcoming one-day international series.

Head made a century as Australia completed their preparations with a 101-run win over Middlesex at Lord’s on Saturday. Despite his 106, Australia were held to a total of 283 for six. It was the second time in two warm-up games they had failed to reach the benchmark score of 300, having made 277 for nine against Sussex at Hove in their tour-opener on Thursday. But they still beat Sussex by 57 runs and the bowlers were even more dominant against Middlesex, who slumped to 182 all out with nine overs to spare. Middlesex were, however, without star batsman Eoin Morgan as the England 50-over captain is leading the national side in a lone one-day international against Scotland in Edinburgh on Sunday.

World Cup-holders Australia suffered a 4-1 series loss at home to England, now top of the global ODI standings, earlier this year. The tourists will likely need to raise their game when a five-match series with England starts across London at The Oval on Wednesday but Head was unconcerned by their recent failure to break the 300 barrier. “It depends, if we bowl the way we have... We’ll find that out pretty quickly, what’s a good score,” Head told reporters after Saturday’s match.

“The last two games have been good enough. We were under the pump at Hove but we were pretty clinical in the way we went about it here,” the South Australian added. The 24-year-old opened the batting on Saturday, with Australia having arrived in England without regular opener David Warner and former captain Steve Smith after the pair were given year-long bans for their roles in March’s ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town.

As well as the two star batsmen, Australia are also without their injured Ashes-winning fast-bowling trio of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood for this white-ball only tour. But Head backed pacemen Kane Richardson, Jhye Richardson, Billy Stanlake and Andrew Tye to fill the void.