England
Wood set for biggest Test yet
The suggestion is that Mark Wood will come in at Trent Bridge, where his first-class record is an impressive 15 wickets at an average of 22.53. The last part of that sentence won’t mean a thing by the time he kicks off that imaginary wall for his first delivery. He will be expected to play a more sustained role than the “up and at them” one he has excelled at so far. Trevor Bayliss divulged that the bowling coach Ottis Gibson thinks Wood should be given a chance to bowl with the new ball, something he has done in only six of his 48 first-class innings.
Live and let Lyth
Those who watched Adam Lyth in the 2014 season – one where he smashed 1,619 first-class runs – will tell you that the man opening the innings with Alastair Cook bears no resemblance to the free-wheeler of that summer. Sure, Lyth’s desire to feel bat on ball has got him into trouble outside off-stump, as has a penchant to snatch at deliveries that are not quite meant for driving. That Lyth of last year, a calculated operator with total confidence in his method, still exists. Having been backed by the selectors, he needs to spend some time this week convincing himself that he belongs at this level.
Buttler craves a score
Scores of 27, 7, 13, 11 and nine are inaccurate representations of Jos Buttler’s worth and value as a match-changing cricketer. For a player who seems to relish pressure in the white-ball game, there is a very real danger that Buttler’s first Ashes series may pass him by. At times he has looked tentative, shorn of the callous intent that saw him score two of England’s finest ODI hundreds in the space of a year, not to mention his 85 on debut against India last summer, which remains his highest Test score. His decision to trudge off instead of review his lbw decision in the second innings at Edgbaston spoke of a man deeply frustrated at the state of his game.
Trent Bridge pitch
The standout moment of the last Trent Bridge Test, against India last summer, was not James Anderson’s 81, or even the world record ninth-wicket stand between himself and Joe Root. It was Stuart Broad, on the first morning, staring daggers at the pitch after seeing a full delivery of his bounce twice after passing the batsman. We can only hope that last year’s aberration of a surface and Birmingham’s three-day stage (a near perfect Test track) will mean players and spectators are treated to something with a bit of a life. Before last year’s bore draw, England had won six in a row at the venue.
W L W L W L W
It’s a sequence that Test cricket has never seen before. England are owners of a run that perfectly captures their charm – consistently inconsistent. A continuation of this trend will see the Ashes regained with a 3-2 win but even with England one in front, Trevor Bayliss and Alastair Cook could do with some normality, not least to gauge where they actually are as a side. It is the beautiful oddity of sports in series that these two teams are pushing each other close yet the three results – by 169 runs, 405 runs and eight wickets – have been anything but.
Australia
Clarke making an appearance
“The No4 batter hasn’t turned up yet,” said Clarke on Clarke. In this number-ridden sport, it will not have passed him by that his career average has dipped below 50 for the first time since November 2012. The statistics suggest terminal decline, with just two fifties in 28 innings. The aesthetics are harsher: a classy touch player who seems to have lost his feel. The noises suggest a move to No5, where he has 20 hundreds to the five he has at four. What he would give, deep deep down, for a flat pitch in Nottingham against an Anderson-less bowling attack.
The Nth coming of Shaun
Come the apocalypse all that will be left are cockroaches, Twinkies and the suggestion that “maybe it’s time to give Shaun Marsh another go” hanging in the barren ether. Just as it will then, as it did before and is starting to now – it doesn’t seem like the worst idea. Adam Voges’ romantic twilight looks to be coming to an end after failures in all five innings so far. Dropping Voges will not only allow Clarke to shift down the order, but mean Steve Smith can do the same, with Marsh slotting in at No3. Smith is Australia’s best batsman and should be treated as such: giving him the easier run-scoring climes of No4 for the two remaining Tests seems a no-brainer.
Siddle for Hazlewood?
As foolhardy as it may be to drop their leading wicket-taker – though England did do it with Steven Finn in the 2010-11 series – Hazlewood’s display at Edgbaston was worryingly loose. In an attack where he needs to be a constant, too often he has released the pressure with a ball on the drive or on the pads. Peter Siddle excels in the role of workhorse and has an excellent first-class record at Trent Bridge (29 wickets at 22.34) having spent time with Nottinghamshire last season. Siddle also took five for 50 there in the opening Test of the 2013 Ashes.
Feeling the heat
Perhaps we will never know whether Mitchell Johnson actually lost his run up in his final over of the match – he pulled up theatrically once, then delivered his last ball from 25 yards, not 22 – but you couldn’t blame him if he had. The Edgbaston crowd were febrile, England’s answer to the Gabbatoir, taking a particular shining to Johnson and, when the hosts were up, hammered that advantage home. Trent Bridge will be quieter – the Barmy Army trumpet is banned there, to England’s players’ dismay – but with the Ashes on the line, expect Nottingham and the Kia Oval to be fiery. Australia must deal with it better than they did at Edgbaston.
Unhappy camp?
As Andy Bull wrote this week, the dismay of recently retired Australian legends likely suggests that some of the current dressing room were not too impressed with Brad Haddin’s axing, even if Peter Nevill performed as admirably as anyone, and – in truth – was far more impressive than anything Haddin has managed in recent times. Darren Lehmann sounded like a man trying to justify a decision he regretted, and Clarke’s views on the issues aren’t too difficult to read: Haddin is his most trusted lieutenant, and the captain’s mouthpiece Shane Warne offered some typically strongly worded views on the issue. If the rumours of dressing-room rifts and wrangling are true, they need to be patched up, and promptly.
