Head Answers the Question: 112 From 84 Balls, and Australia Take the Series in Harare

Three days ago Travis Head was bowled for 4 in Harare and the conversation about him turned, as it tends to with a batter whose method is all risk, to whether the risk had stopped paying. On Thursday he answered it in the most Travis Head way available: 50 from 32 balls, a hundred before the thirtieth over, and 112 from 84 by the time he was caught with Australia on 190 for 2.

It was the innings that decided the match and, with it, the series. Australia made 356 for 6, the highest total of the tour so far, and Zimbabwe — who batted with more collective resolve than the margin suggests — were bowled out for 272 in the 49th over. Australia lead 2-0 with one to play.

Zimbabwe's plan was sound. The 1st ODI had been decided in the morning, when Australia slipped to 107 for 4, and bowling first under the same Harare skies was the obvious way to try to repeat it. It lasted about seven overs. Australia were 50 without loss in 7.2 and 78 without loss at the end of the ten-over powerplay, and Head had his fifty from 32 balls, eight of them struck to the boundary.

What made the innings dangerous was not just its speed but its shape. Fifteen fours and only three sixes: Head was not slogging, he was hitting gaps, and Zimbabwe's fields kept leaving them. Mitchell Marsh took the other role, reaching 50 from 52 balls and falling in the nineteenth over with the stand worth 130. Head went on to 112 before he was caught in the 28th, by which time Australia were 190 for 2 and the match was set.

The second half of the innings belonged to Cooper Connolly, whose 78 from 69 was an exercise in holding a middle order together while wickets fell around it — Inglis, Carey and Renshaw all got in and got out. Connolly fell in the 46th over with 297 on the board, and then Oliver Peake took the finish apart: 41 not out from 18 balls, with three sixes, as Australia added 59 after Connolly's dismissal.

Chasing 357, Zimbabwe needed one of their top seven to play a very long innings. Instead they got seven scores between 23 and 45. Brian Bennett and Ben Curran put on 46 for the first wicket before Bennett was bowled for 23; Curran, out for a duck in the 1st ODI, made 30 from 46 before he too was bowled. Innocent Kaia made 34, Brendan Taylor 39 from 40, Craig Ervine 38 from 39.

Every one of those was a respectable contribution. None of them was the innings the chase needed. Taylor's dismissal in the 32nd over left them 159 for 4, needing 198 from 109 balls. Sikandar Raza's 45 from 49 and Wessly Madhevere's 26 from 13 kept it alive until the 45th over; after that, the last four wickets went down for 19 runs and Zimbabwe were all out with nine balls unused.

With the ball it was a harder day. Brad Evans took three wickets but went for 86 from nine overs, and Blessing Muzarabani — the bowler Zimbabwe most needed to set the tone early — finished wicketless for 68.

The overcast morning that had helped Zimbabwe on Tuesday did not arrive in the same form. Australia's 78 without loss in the first powerplay was the clearest evidence: the new ball did not move enough to trouble batters who were willing to hit through the line. The pitch stayed true through the day, and 628 runs in 98.3 overs tells you both sides found it good to bat on. Pace off the ball was the most effective tool — Josh Hazlewood's nine overs cost 48 with two maidens, and the part-time spin of Connolly and Renshaw took four wickets between them.

There is a particular kind of pressure on a batter who has been told his method no longer works, and it is usually heaviest the next time he walks out. Head's answer was not to change anything. He took on the new ball from the first over, pulled anything short, drove anything full, and reached three figures inside 30 overs against a side that had spent two days planning for him.

His 112 from 84 balls was the fastest scoring of any batter who faced more than 20 deliveries in the match. It gave Australia a platform that made Connolly's patience possible and Peake's hitting affordable. Some innings win a match. This one also ended a debate.

Our preview leaned towards Australia, more firmly than before the 1st ODI, and they won comfortably. We called Blessing Muzarabani against Travis Head the series-defining contest and suggested Head's record after low scores pointed to a big one — he made 112, and Muzarabani went for 68 without a wicket. We also argued that Zimbabwe's best chance was to win the toss and bowl under overcast skies; they did exactly that, and it did not work, which is on us as much as them. Our players to watch were mixed: Craig Ervine made a solid 38, but Matt Renshaw, whom we tipped after his 109 on Tuesday, made 15 with the bat — though he did take 2 for 44 with the ball.

The series is Australia's with a game to spare. The 3rd ODI on September 20 at the same ground becomes a chance for Australia to look at the fringes of their squad and for Zimbabwe to salvage something from a tour in which they have been competitive for long stretches without ever quite pulling level. For Zimbabwe the lesson of Thursday is simple to state and hard to fix: seven batters got in, and a chase of 357 needs at least one of them to stay.