In what came as a big relief for the struggling Australia in the ODI World Cup 2023, explosive opening batter Travis Head has returned to batting after recovering from a fractured left hand. Head will join the Baggy Greens' squad in India later in the month and is currently eyes to make a comeback into the playing XI during Australia's game against the Netherlands, scheduled to be played on October 25 in Delhi.
"It's coming along well, and probably better than we hoped," Head told cricket.com.au.
"When we decided not to go with surgery, which would have meant a 10-week recovery, we were told it would be minimum six weeks with the splint before we could look at playing again.
"Going by that plan, the Netherlands game will be just under six weeks from impact which is a pretty aggressive date so everything would have to go perfectly from here to make that deadline.
"But we'll just see how it progresses over the next few days and I'm excited by the prospect of joining the boys over there later in the week.
"I wasn't even sure I'd be able to bat when the splint came off but, apart from a fair bit of stiffness given I hadn't been able to use it for the past four weeks, I was able to hit balls and play a fair range of shots," he added.
Australia are in a hole currently after having lost both their opening two matches in the ongoing ODI World Cup. In Head's absence, Australia haven't received a solid start to their innings with the bat.
Talking about Head's numbers, the left-handed batter has played 58 ODIs and scored 2,074 runs in the process with the help of three centuries and 15 fifties. He has a strike rate of 99.52 and an average of 40.47. Pat Cummins and Australia would hope for Head to become available for selection sooner rather than later.
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