New Delhi: Australia batter Travis Head is optimistic about joining the Australian team and featuring in their playing XI in the game against the Netherlands on October 25. The ace batter has already returned to the nets for the first time after suffering a thumb fracture in the bilateral series against South Africa played in August 2023.
Head's protective splint was removed last week and he has been active in the nets since then. He will still need a final sign-off before joining the team but the cricketer is hopeful that he will fly out to join the Indian squad on Thursday. The earliest possible return for the left-hander will be in the fixture against the Netherlands and he is looking forward to the return.
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"It's coming along well, and probably better than we hoped," Head told Cricket.com.au. "When we decided not to go with surgery, which would have meant a 10-week recovery, we were told it would be a minimum of six weeks with the splint before we could look at playing again. Going by that plan, the Netherlands game will be just under six weeks from impact which is a pretty aggressive date so everything would have to go perfectly from here to make that deadline. But we'll just see how it progresses over the next few days and I'm excited by the prospect of joining the boys over there later in the week."
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Travis Head is set to travel to India to join the Australian team at #CWC23 🙌https://t.co/o8QSifFkSX
— ICC (@ICC) October 15, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
">Travis Head is set to travel to India to join the Australian team at #CWC23 🙌https://t.co/o8QSifFkSX
— ICC (@ICC) October 15, 2023Travis Head is set to travel to India to join the Australian team at #CWC23 🙌https://t.co/o8QSifFkSX
— ICC (@ICC) October 15, 2023
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With a couple of losses so far in the tournament, Australia will need someone to strengthen their batting unit. Also, Mitchell Marsh has registered scores of 0 and 7 which has made the opening slot an issue of concern for the Aussies and they will be glad to have Head partnering David Warner in the game against the Netherlands.
