Rohit Sharma must be sick of the sight of Travis Head at this point.

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The South Australian has repeatedly thwarted the Indian captain over the past couple of years, most notably with his 163 in the World Test Championship final at The Oval, 137 in the World Cup final in Ahmedabad and 140 during last week’s pink-ball Test at Adelaide Oval.

In each of those three matches, the contest was in the balance when Head walked to the crease, but the Australians were in an unassailable position when he was finally dismissed.

And at the Gabba on Sunday, Sharma’s ‘Headache’ returned.

The left-hander pummelled 152 from 160 balls, including 18 boundaries, and formed a 241-run fourth-wicket partnership with vice-captain Steve Smith, who experienced some deja vu out in the middle.

“It felt a lot like the World Test Championship final,” Smith said at stumps.

“The way he came out and just smacked it. I could take second fiddle and do my thing.”

Batting looked treacherous throughout the morning session in Brisbane. Not for the first time this summer, Indian weapon Jasprit Bumrah generated awkward movement off the surface to rip through Australia’s top order, leaving the hosts in a spot of bother at 3-75.

Even Smith, who later notched a classy century of his own, struggled early in his knock, repeatedly beaten on the outside edge and surviving multiple marginal LBW decisions.

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However, Head had no such quarrels. Unfazed by bowler-friendly conditions, he heaped pressure back on the tourists by throwing the willow at anything in his hitting zone, ticking the scoreboard along at a white-ball tempo.

According to Indian bowling coach Morne Morkel, it was as though he was batting on a different surface.

“The way he’s able to put the bowlers under pressure from the outset is quite incredible,” Smith said.

“He’s got an unbelievable eye, and the areas in which he scores, it’s tough to put fielders in those positions.

“You see them put the deep point out, but he just finds ways to put it past them.

“He’s batting beautifully. He’s confident, and it’s nice to get in a partnership with him, because the scoreboard moves extremely fast.”

Sharma is seemingly out of ideas. He’s concocted several plans for Head, but the Australian always has an answer.

Bouncers? Ramped over the clips cordon or a boundary.

Target the stumps? Flicked through mid-wicket with ease.

How about spin? Ravindra Jadeja hardly threw a punch.

At times, the Indian skipper must look around the field and wonder whether he’s a player short.

“They’re scrambled against him,” former England captain Michael Vaughan told Fox Cricket.

“Sometimes a player has the wool over a team’s eyes. You can see that he has.

“His body language and confidence as soon as he goes out there, you can see it straight away.”

Head’s greatest strength is his ability to hit good balls to the boundary, attacking deliveries that most players would typically leave alone.

Not only that, he’s capable of doing so with an array of different strokes – a length delivery on off stump could be carved through point, driven through the covers or clipped through mid-wicket.

It’s confounding for Sharma and his teammates.

“I always look at great players, and I think they can play the same delivery and hit the ball into three different areas,” Vaughan continued.

“These players, when they get into that state of mind and flow, they’re so good they can take the piss out of you as a captain.

“Brian Lara did it to me.”

Head’s importance to this Australian team can’t be overstated. Each of his previous eight Test hundreds came in a winning cause, while Australia has not won a Test match without him in the starting XI since his debut in 2018.

George Bailey’s decision to omit him for last year’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy opener in Nagpur in favour of Matthew Renshaw remains the biggest blunder of his tenure as national selector to date.

“He’s what I’d describe as a momentum cricketer. He grabs the momentum for your team, very quickly as well. They’re so valuable to a group,” Vaughan said.

“I used to be petrified captaining against players who could take the game away from you quickly – Adam Gilchrist, Herschel Gibbs – it’s very, very difficult to play against.”

Speaking at stumps on day two, Smith and Head pinpointed the 30-over mark as their sweet spot, the ideal time to start their innings.

The new Kookaburra ball, introduced in 2021, has proven a nightmare for batters over the previous few summers, contributing to shorter Test matches and lower batting averages.

However, according to the Australians, batting becomes easier after 30 overs, which has been earmarked as the ideal time for the likes of Head and Mitchell Marsh to pounce on a fatiguing opponent.

Head walked to bat in the 34th over in the first innings, when the Kookaburra wasn’t too shiny or too soft. It’s his ‘Goldilocks’ period.

“At No. 5, I’m watching the overs tick up. I think we were at the 30-over mark when I was able to come in, and we’ve talked about that, the 30-over mark,” Head told Fox Cricket at stumps.

“The top order did a really good job to be able to get us through that period and then (Smith and I) were able to go about our work.”

Nathan McSweeney, Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labsuschagne collectively soaked up 158 deliveries before Head strolled out to bat on Sunday. The trio didn’t convert their starts into substantial scores, but their contributions didn’t go unnoticed.

“A lot of credit has to go to the top three,” Smith continued.

“They faced 50-odd balls each, which is a pretty good effort on that wicket out there.

“If we can sort of get to 30-odd overs when Travis comes in, it makes a big difference to the team.”

India’s pace bowlers have been sublime with the new ball, especially Bumrah, but they need to formulate plans for when the Kookaburra gets soft. Between the 46th and 80th overs in Adelaide and Brisbane, Australia has clobbered 3-353, scoring at faster than five runs an over.

“That’s one area I think we need to get better at. It’s definitely an area that we need to focus on,” Morkel said of India’s execution with the older ball.

“We’ve got the game plans, but are we executing those game plans with a softer ball from both ends? It’s something we need to discuss and get better at.

“From over 50 with that soft ball, at the moment that’s where we’re leaking.”

The third Test between Australia and India resumes at the Gabba on Monday at 10.50am AEDT.