All said and done!

Australia’s Travis Head celebrates reaching his century during Day Two of the first 2025/26 Ashes Test at Perth Stadium on November 22. PIC/Getty Images

Travis Head's century that demolished England in Perth last week will sit comfortably in the front row of epic Ashes hundreds by Australians. If the century that led to Australia's eight-wicket win in the series-opener was an unbelievable effort, the backstory of it is nothing short of fascinating as well. Regular opener Usman Khawaja's back spasm opened up a vacancy at the top and Head, by all accounts, volunteered to fill in. According to teammate Nathan Lyon, Head said before walking out to bat with newbie Jake Weatherald: "It can't be that hard…might as well go get 'em." Get them, he did and Head wrote himself into Ashes glory.

Certain things spoken in the dressing room before undertaking a particular task or facing a tricky situation can go down in cricket folklore to become as famous as the result.

Like Steve Smith's team on the second day of the recent Perth Test, Ian Chappell's Australians could well have ended up losing the 1972-73 Trinidad Test against the West Indies. At the luncheon interval on the final day of the third Test, Rohan Kanhai's side needed just 66 runs for victory with five wickets in hand. Skipper Chappell spent some part of the break lying on a bench with his cap over his face. When it was time to resume battle, he told his bowlers to stick to their line and length "no matter what." And as he walked through the door, he remarked, "[It will be] a good one to win. Max Walker, that tireless fast bowler, struck in the first ball of the new session by having a well-set Alvin Kallicharran caught by wicketkeeper Rodney Marsh and the rest of the batting collapsed in the space of 21 runs. The West Indies were stunned on a ground where they were hoping to open their series account through peerless spinner Lance Gibbs.

In years to come, West Indies's most heartbreaking loss was the 1983 World Cup final to India at Lord's. Then too, they were favourites and the opposition captain - Kapil Dev - didn't have much to say to his team as they walked out to defend 183. Sandeep Patil, in his 2024 book Beyond Boundaries, said that the captain merely uttered, "Shero chalo, one more effort." India went on to beat the West Indies and change cricket forever.

If beating two-time champions West Indies was a massive task, so was South Africa's when they had to chase down 435 to win the final game of the 2005-06 ODI series against Australia at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. Then South Africa captain Graeme Smith revealed to cricket.com later that all-rounder Jacques Kallis lightened up the gloomy mid-innings dressing room atmosphere by saying, "Bowlers we've done a great job and Australia are 15 runs short." Kallis (0-70 in six overs and 20 off 21 balls) was not the only one grinning a few hours later when South Africa went past the target in the 50th over for a one-wicket win.

Forty-two seasons earlier, South Africa were in Australia for a five-match series that ended 1-1 in 1963-64. In November 1963, the visiting team faced a South Australia side that had West Indies great Garry Sobers as their overseas player. When his turn came to bat, Sobers requested his captain Les Favell to let him wear his maroon West Indies cap, according to Ian Chappell in a podcast with David Evans. Favell was a stickler when it came to wearing the South Australia cap, but granted Sobers the permission. Chappell wondered why Sobers wanted to use the West Indies cap and in 1991, while on commentary duty in the West Indies, he asked Sobers at Barbados about the reason. The great West Indian said that it was high time then that South Africans had a good long look at what a West Indies cap looked like. Chappell emphasised to me on Tuesday that Sobers was not being prejudiced while he said that. I almost forgot to tell you that Sobers scored a grand 155 and South Australia won by eight wickets.

Sobers was not one to keep talking about his success, but he could talk about what he could do in retaliation. During the 1971-72 Rest of the World versus Australia series, he copped quite a few bouncers from Australian pace ace Dennis Lillee. Sobers came over the Australian dressing room one evening to tell their captain Chappell that Lillee should know that he could bowl quick and send down bouncers too. And sure enough, in the Melbourne ‘Test' of that series, Sobers bowled Lillee a bouncer which made him, in Sobers's view, "pink." He later got him out - caught by Bishan Singh Bedi for a duck.

Dressing room utterances can be reassuring too. Jatin Paranjape, former international and national selector, told me on Tuesday how crestfallen he was at the end of Day Three in Mumbai's 1999-2000 Ranji Trophy semi-final against Tamil Nadu. Getting out for 15 at one-drop as Mumbai went about responding to TN's first innings score of 485 hadn't helped the team's cause. "I was sitting with my head in my hands [at Wankhede Stadium]. Suddenly, Sachin Tendulkar tapped me on my shoulder and said to me in Marathi that we will win this game." Mumbai were 470-8 with Tendulkar (213) and Abey Kuruvilla (0) the unbeaten batsmen. Tendulkar went on to smash an unbeaten 233 as Mumbai scored 490, even as his last two batting partners had ducks against their names. Mumbai were not happy with the vital lead. They ended up beating TN by eight wickets.

Meanwhile, Head will be delighted that he didn't get ahead of himself with his pre-innings utterance at Perth.

mid-day's Deputy Editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance.
He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.