travis head marked his return to New Road with an unbeaten century for australia on the opening day of the three-day tour game with worcestershire.
head, who played for the county in all formats of the game last summer, struck an unbeaten 109 off 173 balls with one six and 13 fours.
when he reached three figures, the left hander was warmly applauded by players and officials from both sides on the dressing room balcony.
head’s knock provided fine entertainment for the large crowd before australia declared at 266-5 from 75 overs.
but they would have also taken great encouragement from the performance of the worcestershire bowlers.
adam finch bowled a particularly impressive opening spell in which he picked up the wicket of opener marcus harris (14).
josh tongue marked his return to senior action after injury for the first time since late may with an encouraging performance and two wickets.
charlie morris was also rewarded for his early accuracy and perseverance with two post tea wickets before the declaration.
australia were put into bat and fielded a powerful line-up following their first test win over england at edgbaston.
it meant a return to New Road for worcestershire legend graeme hick as the australian batting coach.
finch made the first breakthrough after the tourists had been put in with 36 on the board when harris tried to take the bat out of the way and inside edged the delivery onto the stumps.
tongue returned to the attack after sharing the new ball with club captain joe leach and bowled cameron bancroft (33) after he went for a drive.
usman khawaja and head joined forces and put on 101 for the third wicket in 31 overs.
but tongue broke the stand when khawaja (57) edged the paceman and keeper alex milton held onto a smart catch away to his left in front of first slip.
morris collected his first wicket when marnus labuschagne (15) drove straight to tom fell at cover and then mitchell marsh (13) was lbw trapped in the crease.
head clipped finch off his legs to reach three figures out of 241-5 ahead of the declaration shortly after 5pm.
tongue finished with 2-46 from 13 overs, morris 2-57 from 16 overs and finch 1-75 from 16 overs.
when worcestershire launched their reply, fell (0) was lbw to mitchell starc and josh dell (0) pushed forward to josh hazlewood and the ball hit his glove and bounced onto the stumps.
there was warm applause when josh haynes made his way to the wicket for his senior red ball debut.
he had a first ball let-off when he edged hazlewood and saw bancroft at third slip put down the chance.
but haynes then showed his potential by picking up three boundaries via cover drives against starc.
haynes made a rapid 24 out of 29 before he was lbw to hazlewood.
worcestershire closed the day at 31-3 from nine overs with callum ferguson and riki wessels set to resume tomorrow morning.
