The masterstroke that changed the Ashes series

England may well have lost this Ashes anyway. They have barely done anything to suggest otherwise over the past month.

But rather than English preparation decisions or selection meetings, was it a conversation in the Australia dressing room at tea on day two of the first Test that first set the course of this series?

Australia needed an opener in Perth when Usman Khawaja was struck down by back spasms and up went Travis Head's hand.

"It can't be that hard, let's get after them," he said.

Promoted from the middle order, he proceeded to thrash one of the great Ashes centuries and there began England's death by a thousand Travis Head cuts.

In striking his second hundred of this series on day three of the third Test in Adelaide, Head all-but confirmed the home of the urn for the next two and a half years.

He has surely also ended any debate about his batting position for the remainder of this series and beyond.

The solution to Australia's problem of replacing David Warner was sitting in plain sight with a mullet and bristly Australian moustache.

Head's struggles before this series – only one score of 40 or more in 20 innings going back to June – are now a distant memory.

Four days training before the series – something the most laidback of 31-year-old's said was "unprecedented" for him – helped find his rhythm and surely banish any doubts.

"When you have a big gap in Test cricket and you're lying in bed a couple of nights before, you're like, can I do it?" he said.

"Can you still produce it? Can you, as a cricketer each year, keep rolling out good scores in big moments? It's not going to get much bigger than this."

That last point is the most relevant when it comes to Head.

The ultimate big game player, he now has four Ashes hundreds to go with another in the 2023 World Cup final and the World Test Championship final earlier that year.

When Australia battled desperately to win back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy from India last year, Head made scores of 89, 140 and 159 in the first three Tests.

Former India coach Ravi Shastri once gave the South Australian the nickname 'Head-ache' and England's players must be at the point of wishing they could draw the curtains, lie down and close their eyes in a cool room.

They witnessed the birth of Head's reinvention as an uber aggressive batter in 2021 when he crashed a 148-ball 152 in the first Test of the last Ashes series down under.

Since then Head strikes at 80.20 runs per 100 balls, compared to 49.65 in the first part of his career, in a switch in style almost unprecedented across Test cricket's history.

An unintended consequence of Head's move to the top in this series has been England having to alter their plans to the left-hander.

In 2023 they had a clear plan, with 52% of deliveries bowled to Head by pacemen pitched 10m or shorter to target Head's weakness of balls fizzing around his helmet.

This time, because they now have the new ball in hand, England have been forced to push the ball up but have only fed his strength on the cut, not helped by their inability to hold a line.

For much of the afternoon they resorted to trying to bore Head out with a field spread far and wide - a tactic that must have hurt Ben Stokes to the core.

"I used to coach against Travis Head for Western Australia and you do not bowl to his cut shot," Head's former Australia coach Justin Langer said on TNT Sports.

"His wagonwheel is completely behind point. It was either England couldn't execute their plan or the plans were poor."

Friday's innings at Adelaide was almost this issue in microcosm.

When England denied Head width, he was kept quiet. When they lost their line outside off stump he cashed in. One of his few false shots came when Brydon Carse lifted a bouncer towards his grille and Head miscued narrowly over fine leg.

Those well-directed balls were all too few.

As a result Head strolled to his hundred on day three – sometimes walking between the wickets to complete singles in an ultimate display of his ease – as his home crowd grew in anticipation.

He has batted his way to cult hero status in Australia but in the city of his birth, where some bowed to him after reaching three figures and others wore TravBall t-shirts, they love him more than anywhere else.

On reaching his hundred, Head saluted the crowd and then knelt to kiss a batting surface that treats him so well.

Only all-time Australian greats Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke have scored more centuries at the Adelaide Oval than Head's four while he now averages 87.33 on this ground, putting him fourth on the all-time list of those who have played five or more matches – a list topped by the greatest of them all, Sir Don Bradman.

There is already a statue of Bradman by Adelaide's eastern gates and the head of South Australia's local government has already put forward the idea of erecting one of Head beside it.

"I like to get out in the middle, feel the crowd and expectation," he said.

"I just like playing the game and I have a good time doing it."

Whether Australians remember this series as the summer of Mitchell Starc, Travis Head or someone else will be decided by proceedings remaining in Adelaide, plus what follows in Melbourne and Sydney.

Starc's 19 wickets already make a compelling case but do not forget England felt their bowlers had a good chance of securing victory before Head's century in Perth - a win that would have put this series on an entirely different course.

Head made that view look folly and with his second century, he has now landed a definitive blow.

Australia may well have won either way but Head's promotion was the masterstroke from which England have been unable to respond.