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Travis Head is hopeful that he will be able to play
against the Netherlands on Wednesday, but Australia may choose to be cautious
given his hand injury given that he has yet to complete a full batting practise
against bowlers after only arriving in India.
Head, who was recovering from a fractured left hand he
sustained during Australia’s tour of South Africa little over five weeks ago,
has joined the team in Delhi after watching Australia’s first four World Cup
games from his couch in Adelaide.
Head was absent for the first few days of the
competition, so Australia’s selectors took a big risk by keeping him in the
squad of 15, even though chair George Bailey predicted on Saturday that Head
would resume his place at the top of the order despite Mitchell Marsh’s
outstanding play.
Since taking his hand out of the splint, Head said he
had received four hits in the net. On Saturday in Delhi, he moved from hitting
only tennis balls to facing the sidearm in the nets. Although he is confident
about facing the Netherlands on Wednesday, it is more likely that he will
return for the match against New Zealand on Saturday in Dharamsala.
“I had a really good hit yesterday,” Head
said on Sunday in Delhi. “I think each session is getting better but again
we’ve got to be mindful of the fact that I think it was five weeks [since the
injury] a couple of days ago, and I sort of got told [around] that six-week
mark.
“Everything keeps going well, but again, it’s
[about] how I woke up this morning. It’s how I can potentially back up tomorrow
and train.
“Still a few things I need to tick off but I’m
optimistic. We’ll see what happens. If it continues on this rate, who knows.
Keep doing things day-by-day to hopefully give yourself the best chance.”
Head expressed his gratitude to the selection
committee for retaining him in the team. He believed his prospects of being
selected for the 2019 World Cup had been over when Gerald Coetzee’s thunderbolt
fractured his left hand in Centurion in September.
“When I left [South Africa] and they put it on
the table there was a lot of things that needed to go really well. Very
fortunate the group stayed healthy as well because that was another scenario
that might not have happened. So very happy the boys were fit and going well
which meant they could keep me around, which is nice.
“But it’s also nice to have the confidence to
potentially do the right things and now it’s a case of hopefully day-by-day
getting better and hopefully I can contribute at the end and I guess pay a bit
of the faith back.”