Brendon McCullum echoes Ben Stokes' sentiment, left stunned after Travis Head wrecks Bazball: 'One of the best knocks'

Brendon McCullum praised Travis Head's remarkable innings of 123 runs as Australia defeated England by eight wickets in the first Ashes Test.

Brendon McCullum is not easily dazzled, but in Perth, he sounded like a coach who had just watched his own philosophy turned back on him. Travis Head’s riotous 123 off 83 deliveries dragged a challenging fourth-innings chase of 205 runs into the realm of a net session, as Australia romped home by eight wickets in just 28.2 overs to go 1-0 up in the series.

Brendon McCullum during practice. (Action Images via Reuters)

On a surface where 19 wickets had fallen on day one and England’s second-innings score of 164 felt like a hard-earned scrap, Head’s 69-ball hundred flipped the entire narrative. The first Ashes Test to finish inside two days in more than a century ended not with Bazball fireworks, but with what was effectively “Travball”, and even McCullum could only stand back and applaud.

One of the best knocks

For all the chaos of a two-day Test, McCullum insisted England had done the first part right: setting what he thought was a winning target on that pitch.

“I thought 200 was actually a pretty good score for us to try and defend in the last innings. But the way Travis Head played was absolutely outstanding. It’s one of the best knocks I’ve seen in a pressure situation on a tough wicket,” McCullum told TNT Sports.

That “tough wicket” had already exposed both sides. Australia were skittled for 132 in the first innings, Mitchell Starc’s ten-wicket match haul, and Scott Boland’s 4 for 33 the shredding England for 164 as Ben Stokes’ side tried to counter-punch their way out of trouble.

Head’s response was to go harder, but with ruthless clarity. Elevated to open in place of Usman Khawaja, he first adjusted to the bounce and then detonated, racing to a 36-ball fifty and a 69-ball hundred, smashing 16 fours and four sixes. By the time he fell for 123, Australia needed only 13 runs, and the Test was all but gone for England.

McCullum even revealed that just minutes before the innings began, an Australian great had warned him the total might be plenty.

“I spoke to Gilly (Adam Gilchrist) about five minutes before their last innings, and he said, ‘I think you guys have got 30 too many’. I said, ‘I hope so,’ but we might have needed another 230 the way that Travis played,” McCullum said.

For a coach who has built England’s revival on the idea of seizing pressure and dictating tempo, seeing his side dismantled by a batter doing exactly that dealt a kind of philosophical blow. “Fair play. We’ve always said that if someone’s able to stand up to what we throw at them, and be able to put us under pressure and deliver a performance such as that, then you have to tip your cap,” Brendon McCullum added.

In Perth, Head didn’t just win a Test; he forced Bazball’s architect to acknowledge that, on the most brutal stage of all, Australia had found a version even more explosive.