{"id":304858,"date":"2025-12-08T10:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T10:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304858\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T10:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T10:48:07","slug":"australian-ashes-openers-travis-head-and-jake-weatherald-praised-as-usman-khawaja-call-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304858\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Ashes openers Travis Head and Jake Weatherald praised as Usman Khawaja call looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marnus Labuschagne says Australia’s opening partnership is making the rest of the batting order improve, as selectors deliberate over Usman Khawaja’s Test future.<\/p>\n

The back injury that scuppered Khawaja in the first Ashes Test also ruled the 38-year-old opener out of the eight-wicket win in the second at the Gabba<\/a>, where Australia took a 2-0 series lead.<\/p>\n

Travis Head replaced Khawaja to bat alongside Jake Weatherald, with impressive results.<\/p>\n

Head, a century-maker in the opening Perth Test, took the shine off the new ball in Brisbane with fast starts of 33 and 22.<\/p>\n

Weatherald made a breakout 72 in the first innings at the Gabba, before falling to a pinpoint Jofra Archer yorker.<\/p>\n

“Weathers [Weatherald] has come in for the first time and the way he’s gone about it, as well, has just set the tone at the top,” Labuschagne said.<\/p>\n

Australia has used seven different opening partnerships across 17 Tests since David Warner retired in early 2024.<\/p>\n

But Head and Weatherald have shown the makings of a settled pairing at the top.<\/p>\n

The pair laid a platform for those below to kick on in both Gabba innings, with Australia all out for 511 in the first dig and then rollicking home in the second to record a comfortable victory.<\/p>\n

Labuschagne has made two half-centuries this series in three innings coming in after the new opening duo.<\/p>\n

He felt they were making the middle and lower orders raise their game.<\/p>\n

“For the last three innings, we’ve got off to a bit of a flyer \u2026 that momentum sort of just rubs off,” Labuschagne said.<\/p>\n

“It’s been nice to come off the back of momentum and be able to put the bowlers under pressure from the start of my innings.<\/p>\n

Australia A embarrasses England’s Ashes back-ups<\/a><\/p>\n

England’s lack of Test depth is highlighted as Australia A beats the Lions by an innings and 127 runs.<\/p>\n

“I’ve really enjoyed that. But it’s each game on its own, trying to read the conditions and read what the team needs.”<\/p>\n

Selectors face a dilemma with Khawaja a chance to be fit for the third Test, which begins in Adelaide on December 17, the day before his 39th birthday.<\/p>\n

Representing South Australia in the Sheffield Shield, Weatherald and Head both know Adelaide Oval intimately, with the latter scoring tons in his last three Test matches at the venue.<\/p>\n

Axing Khawaja now would make it hard to see a return to the Test team.<\/p>\n

Labuschagne put faith in the selectors for the third Test after their bold call to drop Nathan Lyon for Michael Neser was vindicated in the pink-ball Test.<\/p>\n

“They looked at the game objectively and said, ‘What’s the best way for us to win this game with all the information we have on pink-ball cricket?'” Labuschagne said.<\/p>\n

“And they made the decision.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marnus Labuschagne says Australia’s opening partnership is making the rest of the batting order improve, as selectors deliberate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[14206,22816,428,8032,1721,309,104890,98898,91189,101,41690,56,54,55,59371],"class_list":{"0":"post-304858","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-adelaide","9":"tag-ashes","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-brisbane","12":"tag-cricket","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-gabba","15":"tag-jake-weatherald","16":"tag-marnus-labuschagne","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-travis-head","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom","21":"tag-unitedkingdom","22":"tag-usman-khawaja"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}