NEW DELHI: Former England fast bowler Stuart Broad has offered advice to his former side on how to deal with Australia's Travis Head in the rest of the Ashes series, after the left-hander single-handedly dismantled the visitors in the opening Test in Perth.
Head smashed a match-winning century in the fourth innings, guiding Australia to a 1-0 series lead as the match finished inside just two days.
Promoted to open the innings alongside debutant Jake Weatherald due to Usman Khawaja's absence with back spasms, the move proved inspired as the left-hander hammered a brilliant 123 to steer Australia to victory.
'Close your eyes and hope': Stuart Broad explains his famous Ashes reaction
England's entire pace unit came under attack from Head, but Stuart Broad felt the visitors' four-pronged fast-bowling lineup - featuring express quicks Jofra Archer and Mark Wood - lacked patience. He urged them to adopt varied plans and show more discipline against the aggressive Australian batter for the remainder of the Ashes.
"What they could have done when Travis Head was really going, then you have to use your awareness to say, 'Let's get him off strike, let's let him to face one ball an over and it's a clip off his hip and he gets one and you don't let him face four, five balls an over and he hits a boundary in those'", Broad told Australian radio station SEN.
"And crucially, when you get him off strike, Marnus Labuschagne comes down to the facing end, you bowl dots at him and create pressure on him. Suddenly, you do that for forty minutes, and Travis Head gets bored of getting a single and tries something outrageous and might get out," he added.
"That's what England could have done a bit better. Yes, we like to see this aggressive play, and it's always looking at the positive option. But sometimes, the positive option is to take the bite out of what's going on just to try and make Travis Head do something different. You can't just let him keep flaying it for hours on end and ends up with 120-odd off 80-odd balls. I think England could have done that a bit differently."
Broad believes England will use the break before the second Test in Brisbane, starting December 4, to rethink their strategies against Australia's batting lineup. With the series already slipping away, he feels captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum will be under added pressure to come up with solutions that can drag the tourists back into contention.
"It's the first time that I've seen Ben Stokes not have a tactical answer on the pitch," Broad said of Head's impressive innings in Perth.
"And that means full credit to what he (Travis Head) was able to do.
"When I reflect on what England could have done, it came as a shock.
"They've designed their mindset to Travis Head coming in at No.5. He opens the batting because Usman Khawaja has a back spasm.
"So, the plan is already gone. You've now got a new ball. 'Okay, what's the plan to Travis Head with a brand new ball? We've not even discussed this leading into this series', so you're a little bit scrambled."
