Jake Ball has belatedly entered England’s selection shake-up for the opening Test in Brisbane next week after what was on Friday described as miracle work by the squad’s support staff.
Paul Farbrace, the assistant coach, said Ball was “absolutely definitely in the mix” to deny Craig Overton a debut at the Gabba with the two vying for the fourth seamer spot against Australia on Thursday.
As Overton’s struggles with the bat – his major advantage – continued with a third consecutive duck, Ball surprisingly acted as substitute fielder for Alastair Cook (who has the very slightest of stomach bugs) in Townsville. Ball was due to bowl three five-over spells in the nets during Saturday’s play, and appears to have long been Trevor Bayliss’s preference, even though he strained right ankle ligaments only last Thursday.
England’s medical staff treated the injury aggressively by giving Ball a moon boot that made things “look worse than they were”.
“In Perth Ball came on and was the first one to get to grips with the conditions and he hit a good length and line and was threatening,” Farbrace said. “He did that all day. Trevor has always had Bally earmarked for this series. He feels with the extra bounce, with him being tall and the pace he bowls, those awkward lengths where he brings both edges of the bat into play. He’s an important player to have available.”
All of this made Overton’s a badly timed first-baller, although he bowled willingly late on despite going wicketless, as Joe Root experimented with some leg theory. “Craig has done himself no harm whatsoever,” Farbrace said. “If he gets selected then he’s done himself no harm whatsoever. It’s a good position from a week ago, when we were thinking we needed someone else from England. Now we think we can pick either one of them and they’d have the skills to be the fourth seamer.”
The day dawned with causes for optimism for England in Australia’s squad for the first two Tests – a new-look top seven, a coach with a more recent hundred than the keeper and no fifth bowler. England then racked up 515 and a first-innings lead of 265, yet continued their worrying trend of collapsing by losing five for 38. Still, they should win the game – the lead is down to 144 going into the final day but the Cricket Australia XI have only six wickets remaining (Nick Larkin has broken a finger).
With their big top order batting – Dawid Malan joined Mark Stoneman with a maiden England century – the tourists perhaps showed the way to go against Australia’s three-man pace attack. Two (Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc) of the three expected to play in Brisbane will operate in short, sharp bursts, like Mitchell Johnson in the whitewash of 2013-14. However, they do not have Shane Watson to bowl 10 tight overs an innings and allow them vital, pace-building rests.
“That’s something that when you go in with three seamers, that’s a risk you run,” Farbrace said. “All teams talk about taking seamers into their third and fourth spells. That’s something we have talked a lot about, making sure that we make things hard for teams, then cash in when you have worn them down.”There were, according to Farbrace “one or two soft dismissals”. Again, he was right, Root was strangled down the legside off Simon Milenko’s medium pacers for 83. Jonny Bairstow smashed a Dan Fallins full toss straight to mid-on. Moeen ran out Malan, then missed a straight one from the off-spin of Matt Short, who came into the match with one first-class wicket at 91, and ended England’s innings with four for 103. He got Overton, too. “A pretty awful dismissal,” said Farbrace, as Overton turned a loosener to short leg.”You can’t say he’s out of form – he’s only faced 13 balls!”
When Stuart Broad went top-edging a sweep off Short, England had staggered clumsily from 380 for three, with Root and Malan cruising, to 457 for nine. Together came Chris Woakes and Mason Crane for a wonderfully austere last-wicket stand of 57 that sapped CA. Eventually Woakes was caught behind off Milenko, leaving Crane stranded four short of his top first-class score, 29.
For Farbrace, Malan was the batting’s bright-spot. “Playing here for the first time, he’s shown that a little more pace and bounce in the wicket suits his game,” he said. “He found England a bit of a struggle with the ball nipping around but here with the ball bouncing and coming on, he looks very much at home.”
November
• 15-18 Cricket Aus XI, Townsville
• 23-27 First Test, Brisbane
December
• 2-6 Second Test, Adelaide (day/night)
• 9-10 Cricket Aus XI , Perth
• 14-18 Third Test , Perth
• 26-30 Fourth Test, Melbourne
January
• 4-8 Fifth Test Sydney
• 11 Cricket Aus XI , Sydney
• 14 First ODI , Melbourne (d/n)
• 19 Second ODI, Brisbane (d/n)
• 21 Third ODI , Sydney (d/n)
• 26 Fourth ODI , Adelaide (d/n)
• 28 Fifth ODI, Perth (d/n)
February
• 2 Prime Minister’s XI , Canberra
• 7 T20 v Australia , Hobart
• 10 T20 v Australia , Melbourne
• 13 T20 v New Zealand, Wellington
• 18 T20 v New Zealand, Hamilton
With England all out with that vast lead, a strange, staid period of cricket followed as CA’s openers put on 80, while England got their bowlers to what’s called their “chronic loads” – the optimum amount of overs before the Test.
Moeen’s bowling went better than his batting. He got 11 overs (five of them maidens), dismissing both the openers, Jake Carder and Ryan Gibson, after they put on 80 while Crane made it three wickets for seven runs by having Will Pucovski – whose number he seems to have – caught at slip. Carder was also caught there by Root, driving, while Gibson was bowled behind his backside trying to sweep his way to a half-century.
