Sri Lanka blow opportunity to dismiss Australian opener Travis Head: ‘They failed’

Sri Lanka have missed a golden opportunity to dismiss in-form Australian batter Travis Head in the first innings of the first Test in Galle.

With young gun Sam Konstas dropped, Head opened the batting and was in blistering form right from the get-go.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Sri Lanka blow early chance against Australia.

But Sri Lanka had an opportunity to remove him from the crease after he raced to 23 from just 13 balls.

He was smacked on the pads off the bowling of Asitha Fernando who was adamant he had the South Australian out.

Head was given not out and, after some consideration, Sri Lanka decided not to use the DRS, a decision that sunned the commentators.

Seven star commentator Trent Copeland called it “a big miss for Sri Lanka”.

And Aussie legend Ricky Ponting thought it was an epic fail.

“We were all sitting here watching it and we couldn’t believe they didn’t at least have a look at this,” Ponting said on Seven.

“You see, it just pitches in line, it straightens back down the line.

“There were a couple of noises, front pad and then on to back pad. Look at the reaction from the bowler. He was absolutely positive.

“Being someone like Travis Head – the most dominant player so far in this partnership, and someone has the chance to take this game away from Sri Lanka early on, you have got to have a look at that.

“They failed to and were shown to be clearly out.”

While the error was a bad one, it didn’t hurt Sri Lanka too much.

Head did manage to make a half century, but they soon had him out for 57 after he mishit a drive off spinner Nishan Peiris and was caught in the deep by Dinesh Chandimal.

Head’s swashbuckling 57 came off 40 balls and included 10 boundaries and a six.

The decision to drop Konstas and use Head as an opener was certainly a controversial one, but his flying 50 has given people plenty of food for thought.

Ponting said he was not a fan of the call, and believed Konstas should have remained in the team.

“I don’t like it, to be honest,” Ponting said on Seven before the match had started.

“I have done a few radio interviews during the week leading up to this series, and I just expected that Konstas would play and would open the batting.

“In two Test matches time they are playing in the World Test Championship in England and Konstas will be straight back into the side then if he doesn’t play here tonight.

“We have seen Travis Head open the batting in the sub-continent before and he did very well. No doubt he will look to get Australia off to a flyer and almost bat like he would in one-day mode, but I think there is a real missed opportunity for the Australians here to get to learn a bit more about Sam Konstas.

“If he is the player we all think he is, I would have loved to have seen him work out a way to play spin in tough conditions in Sri Lanka over the next couple of weeks.”