India’s Jasprit Bumrah ‘one of the fastest bowlers’: Travis Head | Cricket news

‘It will be good to look back on your career and tell the grandkids that you faced him,’ said Australian batsman Head about Indian pacer Bumrah.

India’s Jasprit Bumrah will go down as “one of the fastest bowlers to play the game”, says Australia’s top batsman Travis Head as both teams prepare to face off in the second Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Stand-in skipper Bumrah took eight wickets with some very accurate and brutal fast bowling in the first Test to help the visitors to a crushing 295-run victory in Perth on November 25.

The 30-year-old is expected to restore regular captaincy to Rohit Sharma in the second Test. Without the burden of leadership duties, Bumrah can be even more dangerous under the lights with the pink ball.

“Jasprit will probably go down as one of the fast bowlers to play the game,” Head said on Monday, ahead of the overnight Test in Adelaide starting on Friday.

“We’re getting that now – how challenging he can be, and it’s good to play against that.

“It will be good to look back on your career and tell the grandchildren that you faced him, so it’s not a bad series to play with him,” added Head. He was one of Bumrah’s three wickets in the second innings in Perth.

“I hope I only have to face each other [him] a few more times. He had a challenge.”

He top-scored for Australia with 89 in the hosts’ second innings and will be in familiar surroundings at the Adelaide Oval.

But through it all, the 30-year-old said: “It’s just another week – go and get ready and come back in and hopefully deliver the same kind of performance.

“It’s going to be a challenge but I feel like I’m going well, I feel like I’m in a good space and I’m going out and trying to do that.”

He said the hosts, who entered the five-match Border-Gavaskar Trophy series as favourites, soon faced the shock of a heavy defeat in the first game.

“The writing was on the wall very quickly in that Test match that we pushed to the top,” he said.

“So for me it showed in the game that we could have done better when that result came.

“It’s so easy to move on and get over it, and start talking about what’s next.”

India hold the Border-Gavaskar Trophy after winning it at home in 2022-23 and lead the five-match series 1-0.

Australia last won a two-Test series at home in 2014-15.