Head equals insane record as Aussies smash England

Travis Head belted a record total of runs in an over as Australia beat England in the first Twenty20 of the series.

The swashbuckling left-hander smashed England bowler Sam Curran for 30 runs in a single over, which included three fours and three sixes.

It is the equal most runs by an Aussie batter in a T20I match.

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Ricky Ponting (2005), Dan Christian (2021), and Mitchell Marsh (2024) have also done it in the green and gold.

Head brought up his half century in just 19 balls on his way to 59 off 23 and helped the Aussies to a total of 179 all out from 19.3 overs. He put on 86 with Matt Short for the opening stand.

In response England was bowled out 28 runs short of the chase.

"They bowled well at the start, the first couple of overs," Head said afterwards.

"But yeah, nice to get one away. Disappointed not to go on with it.

"I'd love to go out and whack it every time. I know that's not going to be the case every time. I'm in a nice bit of form at the moment, I want to continue that."

England was lost for answers when Head did start teeing off, and skipper Phil Salt admitted it could be a challenge for the entire series.

The Aussies play two more T20s and then five one-day matches against England.https://twitter.com/mroller98/status/1833931466541040100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

"He can do that, he's done that all over the place now for a couple of years," Salt said of Head.

"We're very aware of what he can do, and what they can do."

Aussie skipper Mitch Marsh could only sit back and watch in awe at his opening batter.

"It's pretty exciting watching Heady go about his work," Marsh said.

"He is a special talent. We were certainly on par for above 200... we tried our best to stuff it up but it's certainly nice to start the series with a win."

Australian legend Ponting was full of praise for Head following the match.

"He actually intimidates fast bowling attacks now," Ponting told Sky Sports.

"Because he's so dangerous and can score so freely on both sides of the wicket, teams don't really know where to tie him down.

"There's a lot of unorthodox about what he does. He moves around the crease a lot, generally outside his leg stump. But if you don't bowl almost the perfect ball to him then he's going to make you pay.

"And he's playing with such freedom. He's not even thinking about getting out, he's not caring about getting out. He sets games up for his team very quickly."

Australia did have an injury scare during the game with fast bowler Xavier Bartlett leaving the field with what appeared to be a side strain.

The next T20 is in Cardiff in the early hours of Saturday morning (AEST).