Brydon Carse insists England’s bowlers can recapture the pace and hostility that had Australia rocking on the first day of the Ashes.
Two batting collapses in the series opener, followed by a fearless fourth-innings century from Travis Head, condemned the tourists to a two-day loss in Perth but it was not one-way traffic.
At the end of day one, England’s quicks had set the agenda and got the home side hopping with an average speed nudging 88mph. Australia were blown away for just 132, their lowest completed Ashes total since 2013.
1️⃣ Playing in a day/nighter
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2️⃣ Five days of hard training
3️⃣ Under the lights in Brisbane
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Pressed back into service the following evening England’s quicks were unable to recreate the same menace as Head took the game by storm, with a visible dip in their collective firepower.
But they are well rested and raring to go when the day/night second Test begins at the Gabba on Thursday.
Carse, who took five wickets in his Ashes debut, including a brute of a ball to dismiss Usman Khawaja, said: “I’d like to think there’ll certainly be moments in this game, and throughout the series, where we can have that sort of impact on the Australian batting line-up.
“We’ve got to take massive amounts of confidence from that first day in Perth. As a group of seamers we all offer different skills and attributes so hopefully we can continue to trouble some of the Australian batters.
“It’s special to be part of a pace attack like that, we’ve certainly got players and bowlers that are exciting and can hopefully change games.”
England already know their will be once change to their bowling group, with Mark Wood’s knee problems ruling him out of action, but Carse, Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson and Ben Stokes will all be going again.
Back-ups Josh Tongue, Matthew Potts and Jacob Bethell arrived in Brisbane in time for a first net session under lights on Monday, having joined England Lions for a warm-up match in Canberra over the weekend.
Tongue is the likeliest of the three to see action this week if England opt to remain with a five-strong seam unit, but the option of drafting first-choice spinner Shoaib Bashir or even off-spinning all-rounder Will Jacks remain on the table.
England’s training session on Thursday represented their best chance to come to terms with the idiosyncrasies of the pink Kookaburra ball. While they have packed their calendar with five days of workouts, only two take place at the crucial period when artificial light takes over and their second, on the eve of the game, will be less extensive.
In the absence of exhaustive fact-finding, the tourists will be looking to their opponents’ previous game plans, with Australia boasting more experience (14 games) and wins (13) than any other country.
Joe Root on...
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🩷 Pink ball cricket
🇦🇺 The Aussie attack
🧠 Being tactically adaptable
🏟️ Playing in a MASSIVE second Test
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“It will be interesting to see how it goes. The general chat is that in the twilight period the ball does do a bit more,” Carse said.
“Looking back at a couple of highlights of previous games played in Australia, it’s certainly very admirable how their new-ball bowling goes. They’ve played some really good cricket with a pink ball and I’d like to say that we’ve had a look at some of the stuff that they’ve done over the previous years.
“As soon as we get out there we’ll assess those conditions.”
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