What can Travis Head do?

The South Australian was dropped despite being one of Australia's best batsmen – or at least no worse than anyone else – in the Ashes but in an instant, he is struggling for his place in the Aussie side.

Despite averaging 41, Head seems to be in an odd limbo place in his career where he'll be the next out if a batting change needs to happen.

Not that he had much of a chance against Pakistan.

In his first real bat he hit 56 but commentators have slammed the no. 6 after a haphazard push to cover that undid all his good work.

“That’s not smart play from Travis Head”, Michael Vaughan said on Fox Cricket. “Travis Head has missed an opportunity to really establish himself in the Test team.

"[Southee] was dangling that carrot, wide of off-stump, full of a length and Travis Head has bitten.

“An opportunity missed for head to really establish himself in the Test team. 56 gets a you a couple more games maybe, but you get that big three figures, it gives you a long run in the team.”

“That’s his whole career”, Mark Waugh added. “You can always get out to a good ball and a good piece of bowling, but when you’re causing your own downfall, that’s the really frustrating thing.”

On Channel 7, former Aussie skipper Ricky Ponting also stuck the boot in.

"He's got to eliminate these mistakes. (New Zealand have) got a very straight field set. They've actually set him up for that," Ponting said on Channel 7.

"They've got a straight catching cover, a very straight extra cover – that's the exact dismissal that they're looking at. He can stand there and hit that as hard as he likes, he's not going to get any runs for that actual shot. He's not going to pierce that field.

"If he takes a bit off that hit and just pushes it squarer out to the deep point guy he gets a single and he gets off strike without taking any risk. He's just got to think it through that little bit more."