Australia opener Travis Head has launched a strong defence of his team and the national selectors, accusing former players turned critics of “putting a bullet” through the current side ahead of the first Test against South Africa in Durban on Friday.Head’s remarks came a day after Matthew Hayden, the former Australia opener, described the selectors’ recent picks as “the greatest pile of mediocrity that we’ve seen in a generation of cricket”. Hayden’s criticism, made on a podcast, was aimed at the recall of Nic Maddinson, who is back in the Test squad after nearly 10 years following injuries to Josh Inglis and Cameron Green.Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Head did not name any pundit directly but made his feelings clear. “I think it’s unfairly judged a fair bit from a group of past players, pretty much that put the bullet through a lot of players, which I think is unfair,” he said. “But that’s what they’re paid to do. Some of them need a job, so they go after us, and that’s totally fine.”Head added that the current group was equipped to handle the scrutiny. “This group is strong enough to deal with those sorts of things. That’s how it is. It’s unfortunate sometimes to have some of that feedback from a generation of players that we have huge respect for, but that’s the caper.”Hayden had accused the selectors of “disrespecting first-class cricket”, arguing that batters should average 45 or more before being considered for Test selection. Maddinson, 34, carries a first-class average of 37.11.Head, however, backed the decision to bring in an experienced campaigner. “We need mature guys that know what they need to be doing,” he said. “And I think that revolves back to why we’ve been so good over a period of time and why Australian cricket was so good back then in that era, because you’d bring in the Mike Husseys of the world, who are 30, who are tried and tested and know what they need to do.”Former Australia captain Allan Border also weighed in, suggesting that Head, 32, would face his toughest challenge as an opener against the South African attack and might be better suited to batting at number five. Head brushed that aside too. “I have laughed at a fair bit of it because if a traditional opening batter had pushed out the same sort of numbers in his first 20 innings, I think he’d be pretty safe and not talked about in the way that it has been talked about,” he said. “It’s a lot of headline stuff.”