Australian Media Mocks England After Ashes Rout, Hails Travis Head’s 123 as Series Breaker
Australian media mocks England after Australia’s two-day Ashes win, hailing Travis Head’s explosive match-winning century.
Australia crushed England by eight wickets inside two days in the Ashes opener at Optus Stadium, with Travis Head’s explosive 69-ball century and Mitchell Starc’s ten-wicket haul handing the hosts a 1-0 lead and prompting a gleeful media pile-on from Down Under. Head, promoted to open in Usman Khawaja’s absence, demolished England’s attack with a blistering 123, racing Australia to a 205-run target in just 28.2 overs on the second afternoon—the highest total of the entire Test. The result left 20,000 travelling England fans with an unexpected three-day holiday in Perth and sparked some of the most savage headlines in recent Ashes history.
The West Australian led the charge, splashing a photo of Head reuniting with his family at Perth Airport across its front page under the banner “England’s daddy.” The sub-headline crowed, “Head’s early family reunion after heroics hands 20,000 glum Poms a three-day holiday in Perth.” Other outlets were equally merciless—Fox Sports declared “Poms sent packing in record time,” while the Daily Telegraph called it “the shortest Ashes Test since 1936” and joked that England’s Bazball had been “bazz-bombed.”
England’s second-innings collapse proved the turning point. Resuming at 65/1 with a 40-run lead, they lost 5-23 in a chaotic half-hour spell to Starc and Pat Cummins, slumping to 88/6 before Gus Atkinson’s counter-attacking 37 dragged them to 234 all out. Starc finished with career-best figures of 7-53 and 3-67 to claim Player of the Match honors, while Head’s onslaught—featuring 12 fours and six sixes—rendered Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, and Ben Stokes helpless.
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The humiliating defeat, England’s heaviest by balls remaining in Test history, has reignited debate over Bazball’s viability on Australian pitches and left the tourists facing a mountainous task to regain the urn. With the second Test in Adelaide starting November 28 under lights, England must regroup quickly, while Australia—and their jubilant media—savor one of the most one-sided Ashes days in decades.
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