Scarves with “Ben Stokes: greatest innings of all time” have been on sale outside Old Trafford during this Test and Trevor Bayliss has accepted that similar heroics to those witnessed at Headingley will be needed if England’s Ashes hopes are to be kept alive.
Speaking after day four, with his side sitting 18 for two and needing to bat out 98 more overs on a wearing pitch to keep the series at 1-1 with one to play, Bayliss looked to keep the mood upbeat despite the perilous nature of the situation. “I’m always positive,” he said. “I think we can do it. There’s no use playing at this level if you don’t. They believe they are good enough to bat 98 overs and save the game. We’ve certainly got some players in the sheds who can make hundreds. As we saw in the last Test, anything is possible.”
One of those players still in the “sheds” is Stokes, who gave England’s team talk in the huddle before Australia’s second innings set them an improbable 383 to win. Bayliss is hoping some residual stardust from the all-rounder’s unbeaten 135 a fortnight ago wears off on his teammates overnight. “It probably gives the rest of the guys belief,” he added, “that if one guy can do it, someone else can, too. We’ve already spoken about who is going to put their hand up and be the hero.”
Losing Joe Root first ball, bowled by a scorcher from Pat Cummins that rattled the top of off stump, was a significant setback for England. For Steve Smith, whose 82 continued his remarkable series, it represents Australia’s plan for claiming the eight wickets required on the final day. He said: “I think that ball to Root is a blueprint of what we need to do tomorrow: the quicks to keep hitting that top of the stump length and let the pitch do its thing. Mixed in with a good bouncer to play with their feet and maybe get a bit of up and down movement as well.”
On the form that has extended his record to nine successive scores over 50 in Ashes cricket, Smith added: “I’ve heard a few different things but I’m not in the game for personal accolades, I’m here to do my job and score as many runs for the team as I can. Fortunately I’ve been able to.”
The stellar run extends back to the 2017-18 series in Australia when the pitches – bar Adelaide – were devoid of any grass; Bayliss, when asked about an Old Trafford surface that was similarly bare on day one, shared some disappointment in this regard. The England head coach said: “I’d have liked to have seen a bit more green grass on all of the wickets this year. We certainly had that four years ago.
“What has got to happen here is, we either play on wickets that have some green grass on, like in county cricket, or we play county cricket on flatter wickets with not a lot of grass so we actually learn how to bat and bowl on flatter wickets.”
