Travis Head is hoping for seam-friendly pitches in the Ashes and says he enjoys batting on such surfaces more so than flatter ones believing that it presents more opportunities to score.
The pitches that will be presented in the Ashes is a major talking point with the Test surfaces in Australia over the past four summers trending heavily in favour of the seam bowlers compared to decades past.
Head was the player of the series in the 2021-22 Ashes following stunning centuries on challenging pitches in Brisbane and Hobart. He is hoping for more of the same this summer.
"I probably enjoy batting on those sort of wickets," Head told ESPNcricinfo. "The flatter wickets, with the grind, that more so challenge technique, I think, over longer periods of time [trying] to eke out runs has never probably come as natural to me with being a stroke player and wanting to get on with it. And the slower, flat wickets probably don't tend to that. But fast-paced pitches that nip, you can maybe get away with a few things.
"And then obviously the way I want to play is if they present opportunities to score, you score. So when they're greener, they pitch up a little bit more and a bit fuller, and the style that I play, if they miss a little bit, I'm able to hopefully score and get busy.
"It's a run based game. You see some of the great players, like Steve Smith, Joe Root, you blink and they're on 30 or 40. And that's something that I've always appreciated, and definitely [on] these wickets, you know that you potentially have got one with your name on it. You can still play well. You can still get runs. Sometimes you've got that go about it in different ways. But ultimately, it's a game where you go try and score as many as you can."
Since the start of the 2021-22 Ashes, top seven batters have averaged just 30.22 per dismissal in Test matches in Australia and combined for 24 centuries across 20 Test matches. In the four summers before that, from the start of 2017-18 Ashes to the end of the 2020-21 Border-Gavaskar series, top seven batters averaged 38.14 across 20 Tests with 34 centuries scored.
By contrast, Test pitches in England have trended the other way in the same four year periods with batters averaging 30.90 in Tests in England between 2018-2021 and 38.94 since the Bazball era began in 2022.
But while run-scoring has trended down in Australia, Head has thrived averaging 54.64 in home conditions with six centuries striking at 88.90. No other player has averaged more than 45.29 in Australia in the same period.
While Head has thrived, other Australian batters have been neutralised in home conditions in recent times. Steven Smith has averaged 45.26 across the last four home summers with four centuries, having averaged 63.20 in Australia across the first 10 years of his career.
He believes England's batters will face a challenge if Australia's pitches remain spicy for the upcoming Ashes.
"England play pretty well on the flatter wickets, the way they play," Smith said. "So, if there's a bit in it like there has been the last three or four years, with our bowling attack, it certainly makes things a lot more difficult for their batters."