Analysed: How Travis Head's super cut forced England to fluff their lines in the Ashes

This century, only four players have done it; the most recent being Travis Head with 629 runs in the series just gone.

Those runs came at a frightening rate. Head’s strike rate of 87.4 is the highest (where balls faced are known) for anyone with over 500 runs in an Ashes series, and a good deal above the next best, David Warner’s 74.4 for 523 runs in 2013-14.

Much has been made of England’s erratic bowling in this series, and that was certainly a factor in Head putting up the series that he did. But he had his own part in forcing that as well, thanks to a trait he shares with both Warner and Australia’s second-highest run-scorer this series, Alex Carey.

The cut shot is the consequence of a bowler's mistake in Test cricket. Largely, it means they were too short and too wide, missing their line and length. Bowled and leg-before chances go out the window, slip catches are highly unlikely, and placing a catcher can be difficult – the batter usually has enough time to place the ball where they want, and can generate enough power to catch a fielder unawares, even if it comes to them.

Similarly, from a batter’s point of view, the cut shot is largely attempted when they think the ball is short and wide enough for the risk to be minimal. It is also an attacking shot; boundaries off them are not uncommon, and at best fielding teams will concede a single or a double with a sweeper fielder in the deep on the off side.

Now, this choice of "when to attempt a cut" varies from batter to batter. And this is where Head becomes relevant.

Also read: The Travis Head stat that marks him out as one of the great Test match-winners

Travis Head's superpower: Cutting off tight lines

A disclaimer before moving forward: Since this analysis revolves around the cut shot, which itself depends largely on the angles at play between bowler and batter, we will consider a set of left-hand batters against right-arm pace bowlers, the matchup Head had throughout the Ashes. Ideally, we would also include the reverse combination – RHB vs left-arm pace – but the sample sizes are prohibitively small.

Since his debut in October 2018, Head is one of 16 left-handed batters to score over 2,000 Test runs – a set that we may use as a proxy for the top-level of Test batting. Data from CricViz allows us to examine when these players choose to play the cut shot; more specifically, which lines they opt for it (this includes variants such as the late cut and upper cut).

The following chart maps the cumulative percentage of each batter’s cut shots, by line. Taking Head as an example: against right-arm over the wicket bowling, 8.3 per cent of his cut shots come off deliveries within the line of the stumps. 14.5 per cent are within the line of fourth stump, 28.3 per cent within the line of fifth stump, and so on.

What is striking with respect to Head here is that 52 per cent – over half – of his cut shots against right-arm over are played from within a sixth-stump line, i.e. within a second, imaginary set of stumps outside the actual ones.

On its own, this is not remarkable. But it is, when very few others on this list measure up to that. In fact, only two others are over 45 per cent, the retired David Warner and Head’s teammate Alex Carey.

Against round the wicket bowling, Carey, Head and Dean Elgar (who only has a total of 23 cuts) are the only ones to play over 60 per cent of those shots within this line. While the trend is similar, the difference from this angle is not as much between the top three and the rest.

Read more: Where does Travis Head's 2025/26 rank among the best Ashes batting performances?

That is likely because left-handers can cut narrower lines from round the wicket more often since the ball remains within their eyeline from release. From over the wicket, as the ball largely comes across them, it can be leg-side of the batter and slightly less visible for a large portion of its path.

The sixth-stump line is a convenient cut-off point, but the trend largely holds within a fifth-stump line as well.

Of course, so far this is only about frequency. If, for example, Head attempted cut shots this often but kept getting out cheaply, this would not be an issue for opposition bowlers. But he is exceptional.

Whether against right-arm quicks from over or around the wicket, Head jumps out for his returns on the cut shot from tighter lines. The following table shows the results of attempted cut shots on a fifth-stump line or closer.

Cut shots played from a fifth-stump line or closer - LHB with 2,000 runs since Travis Head's Test debut

The low averages, in quite a few places, illustrate the perils of attempting to cut deliveries that are close to the body. Misreading a delivery on a tighter line as cuttable can lead to chop-ons from the bottom edge, or otherwise false shots. Head himself was a victim of this twice this series.

The difference is, between the occasional misstep or stroke of misfortune, Head is absolutely devastating. None of the others are quite as effective with anywhere near the same level of regularity. Warner and Carey are perhaps closest.

As for why this matters: quite simply, it cuts down the bowler’s margin for error on line. By and large, seam bowlers look to hit the top of off, or operate in and around the channel just outside it, i.e., the fourth- and fifth-stump lines. If a batter is able to score consistently off those lines, they need to be that much tighter, a level of precision which may sometimes only be possible for truly exceptional bowlers.

In the opening Test at Perth, Head’s blitzkrieg of a century in Australia’s chase saw him cut 11 times for 25 runs, including two fours and two sixes. One of those maximums off Brydon Carse might still be giving the bowler nightmares.

How Head disrupted England's lines

Thereafter, England seemingly attempted to stop feeding the shot. At Perth, they bowled round the wicket to Head 65 per cent of the time. Aside from the pink-ball Test that followed, where primarily Jofra Archer continued to do so, England’s quicks began switching more to over the wicket. Across the last three Tests, they came round only 58 per cent of the time.

England’s efforts to deny him this room reflected in their lines as well. At Perth, 43 per cent of deliveries to Head reached him between the fourth and sixth stump lines. This went down to 35 per cent across the next two Tests, and 26 per cent by the time Melbourne and Sydney came around.

On the surface, a decent enough change to deny him the lines on which he thrives.

But if the first-order effect of this incredible ability – former Australia international Peter Sleep said Head has had it since he was 10 years old – is that bowlers have less room for error outside off stump, the second-order effect is the potential for over-correction.

England then ran into the issue of where those deliveries on the 4th-6th stump line were being redistributed. They did bowl at the line of the stumps marginally more often (38 per cent later on vs 34 at Perth), but also ended up straying onto Head’s pads.

Across the fourth and fifth Tests in particular, England’s quicks ended up bowling outside Head’s leg stump almost 25 per cent of the time; every four balls, he was receiving an invitation to score with minimal risk.

The only time they dismissed Head from a delivery on this line was after the Perth century itself, when he backed away, tried to swat Brydon Carse into the leg side and holed out to deep midwicket, far from a sustainable mode of wicket-taking. After that, he made 66 (103) in the series from these lines; scoring quickly enough to worry England, but with little danger of being dismissed.

In essence, this series showed quite plainly how Head’s disruptive nature in Test cricket turns on his one freak ability; that ability to turn good line bowling into a free-scoring avenue has both direct and indirect benefits.