On tour in Australia I once asked the England manager, Doug Insole, a very naive question: “Will anybody bother to turn up at the MCG or Sydney if the series is already decided?” He looked at me aghast before responding: “They will be there in their thousands. They just love watching the Poms being beaten.” In the past week I have met Australians genuinely lamenting the series is over before the start of the fourth Test. But they are in the minority.
On Boxing Day there is technically a dead rubber Test going on here but it won’t feel like that. Around 90,000 will file into cricket’s largest amphitheatre and even though most of the critical blows have been delivered in this series it will still feel like the Colosseum for England’s cricketers. An Ashes Test here has its own momentum.
The Australian thinktank may take a slightly different view. They now have scope to look ahead. They hope that by being more relaxed, with their primary goal achieved, their players may therefore become even more potent. And with the Ashes secured they will not take any risks in selection.
They will be without Mitchell Starc, the leading wicket-taker in the series with 19 victims, ruled out on what was Sunday morning here because of his bruised heel.
Jackson Bird is in the squad and ready to play and his presence is likely to reduce the number of bouncers bowled by Australia by around 33%. Bird is not a conscientious objector in the manner of Gubby Allen during Bodyline; it’s just that he is not as quick as the others. Whether Tim Paine will continue his impressive return to international cricket depends on his personal circumstances as his father-in-law has recently suffered a stroke.
For the England players the final two Tests are highly significant. In two of the past three tours the side has disintegrated in Melbourne and Sydney, prompting an overhaul of personnel in the team and the coaching staff. It feels different on this trip, when England have been emphatically beaten but not disgraced. The impression is that the squad is still determined to improve. Everyone is hanging on to the end.
The focus is sharpest upon the experienced players, of whom only Jimmy Anderson has performed to his usual standard. Alastair Cook, Stuart Broad and Moeen Ali are struggling but the expectation is that England will stick with most, maybe all, of their senior men here.
Given the outcome of the first three matches it is an oddity that England have used only 12 men in the series, with Craig Overton replacing Jake Ball after the Brisbane Test, but it is still hard to envisage sweeping changes. For Gary Ballance (he’s still here) there is no obvious route into the team; the same applies to Ben Foakes. As ever any changes are more likely in the bowling department.
Faith will, correctly, be shown in Cook. We know he has been practising hard, which is not surprising and mostly reassuring. His response to his dearth of runs has been more nets on his days off. Graham Gooch would approve. However, the constant extra work he is putting in betrays his concerns about his batting.
Unlike Cook, Moeen began the series looking sprightly with the bat, timing the ball well in Brisbane, where he scored 78 runs in the match. Now that hairline stumping decision in the second innings there, albeit on a white line that would not look out of place in the middle of a road, feels like a turning point. A major innings in the first Test and Moeen’s tour might have taken off. Instead there has been a steady decline. At the crease he has been tormented by Nathan Lyon and comprehensively out-bowled by him as well. England might stick with him for one more game.
Broad’s situation is different, but almost as troubling. He has five wickets in the series – though he was unlucky not to take more when conditions were favourable in Adelaide. The problem for him is that he has not been bowling badly but still the wickets have not been forthcoming. He has been accurate and persistent but neutered by the absence of movement and in these conditions he lacks that extra yard of pace to disturb the best batsmen. Melbourne might suit him better, perhaps, but despite his well-earned reputation for combativeness, his confidence is low.
There will be at least one change as Overton’s damaged ribcage has ruled him out. The options to replace him are Ball, Mark Wood, Tom Curran and Mason Crane. The last two are the most likely participants. Curran would be the like-for-like replacement, who could also bolster the lower-order batting. Crane would be the most cavalier of options. His selection would represent an extreme case of straw-clutching – bear in mind that Australia in the post-Warne era have settled for rock-solid finger spin rather than wrist spin.
I have outlined my reservations about playing Crane so early in his career before, as well as my amazement that hardened old pros such as Trevor Bayliss and his selectors can become so dewy‑eyed about anyone who flicks the ball out of the back of the hand. His selection for this tour makes dear old Christopher Martin-Jenkins’s championing of Ian Salisbury back in the 90s seem positively pragmatic.
Crane is clearly a sparky, gifted cricketer, even if he is not a regular for Hampshire (in part due to a crazy Championship schedule), and he deserves the very best of luck if he gets picked here. It would be enormously exciting for him and for those of us looking on safely from a distance.
The romantics will be thrilled by this prospect and no doubt there will be many references to Shane Warne’s modest record and experience before his first Test appearance, as well as his one for 150 on debut 25 years ago against India.
Warne was a genius. It is wishful thinking to put the irrepressible Crane in the same bracket. Whichever way the selectors go, England are likely to play at least one wide-eyed debutant at the MCG.
