A Test series usually needs a hero and a villain, and it looks like we may now have one

Every ding-dong Test series needs a hero and a villain.

In Travis Head, Australia has its hero. The moustache. The flaying upper cuts. The see ball, hit ball mentality.

He’s this generation’s Adam Gilchrist, only with more scruff. He’s made three tons in his last five knocks at Adelaide Oval. Coining him a cult figure undersells his value, but he most certainly has a cult following.

Whatever Darren Lehmann was to South Australia, Head is that and then some. If they don’t build a statue in his honour, they will name a lager after him. Like David Hookes before Lehmann, width is his fantasy.

This summer needed a villain. Test cricket needs enemies and maybe some hatred. Bad blood can be good, at least for the neutral. Modern day cricketers are all a bit nice. Even Ricky Ponting and Harbhajan Singh get along well these days.

Last night Mohhamad Siraj was visibly frustrated when Marnus Labuschagne withdrew at the last moment thanks to a giant beer snake behind the bowler’s arm.

Siraj threw the ball at Labuschagne. There were some jeers, but this was just the entree.

Today, Siraj was wicketless and agitated. He's one of the players that will only be happy when they retire. Head the hero had just flicked him effortlessly for four backward of square leg. It was his 17th boundary.

Head was on 140 at the time. The lead was 140. The next ball, Siraj castled the home town star. A few choice words followed.

The send off will surely be reviewed by the match referee. In grade cricket, Siraj would receive multiple weeks.

At Test level, despite the obvious need to set a higher moral bar, it’s unlikely he will receive anything more than a polite warning, particularly if the BCCI get on the phone from headquarters.

The Adelaide crowd hissed and booed with vigour. Siraj trudged down to the fence at the end of his successful over and was widely jeered by grown men hanging over the fence.

According to journalist Geoff Lemon, a rotund fellow sporting an Andrew Jarman footy jumper was particularly vocal. Welcome to Adelaide.

Send-offs aren’t acceptable, but Head won’t lose sleep and the final element this series needed was some proper spice.

It says something that the biggest roar of the day wasn't for Head's ton, but for Mitchell Starc's drive for four off Siraj's next delivery.

Fans love seeing Australians succeed. But they love it even more when villains fail too.

The cricket itself has been engrossing from start to finish, even if both teams are carrying some underperformers.

If Siraj can play the Stuart Broad role for the remaining three Tests, the series will be better for it. Besides, it's not as if the brief run-in with Head distracted him.

Siraj collected three of the next four wickets to finish with respectable figures of 4-98.

Day two at Adelaide Oval had these moments. Every day of this series has. Each session is more engrossing than the last.

It's baffling that the South Australian Cricket Association prefers a Christmas day Test over an early December pink ball Test. Aren't they watching? 50,000 people have been here on successive days.

Another weird moment: Mitch Marsh walked when Snicko (and its operator in an interview with Code Sport's Daniel Cherny) said he didn’t hit it.

Early, Marnus Labuschagne saved his immediate future with a classy 64.

And the struggles of Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith were brought into sharper focus after twin failures.

Let’s be careful not to lazily hand the blowtorch onto the veteran duo just because Labuschagne finally lifted, but the numbers nevertheless paint a bleak picture for both.

Khawaja has gone 26 Test innings without a ton now. Smith is only marginally better, having batted on 24 occasions without a century.

For both, it’s the longest droughts of their Test careers. Smith is 35 and Khawaja will be 38 within a couple of weeks. Those are the objective numbers. You make up your subjective mind.

But it’s the performance of Labuschagne and to a lesser extent Nathan McSweeney which allowed Head to play the way he did.

And it was Head’s innings that will probably lead Australia to a series-levelling victory.

And it will be this result which will give Khawaja and Smith comfort, because teams that win are far less likely to make changes than teams that lose.

Competitive cricket is usually enough to satisfy the purist. But already this series has given the casual fan so much more, and we are just six days in.