Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has compared Travis Head with former keeper-batter Adam Gilchrist after the former’s stunning ton on day one of the World Test Championship (WTC) final. The veteran believes Head is scoring at a faster clip than Gilchrist, who scored at 81.95 in 96 Tests as well. Notably, Head stayed unbeaten at 146 after day one of the WTC final against India at the Kennington Oval. Head reached his fifty off 60 balls and got to his 100 off 106 balls as well.

Speaking to ICC, Ponting said: “He probably is (similar to Gilchrist). In fact he is probably scoring quicker now than Gilly probably ever did. His strike-rate through this (World Test Championship) qualification period is 81, which is higher than anyone else in the world to have scored more than 500 runs. His confidence is growing by the game, his strike-rate keeps going up, he hits boundaries early on in his innings which puts pressure back on the bowlers which is what you want from your middle order players, and his last two years have been quite remarkable.”

Travis Head also played well when he was promoted to open the innings during the India tour earlier this year after David Warner’s injury. he scored 235 runs in three Tests at 47.

“I think when he first comes in you need to execute perfectly to him. It is no good trying to over attack him because if you bowl any bad ball, he is going to put it away. They will learn by the way they bowled to him in this first innings, and they will definitely adjust in this second innings, but sometimes it is too late,” he concluded.