Ashes 2021/22: England set to dump Mark Wood as Stuart Broad, James Anderson get set to return
Savaged spinner Jack Leach has so far managed to hold his place in the England squad for the second Test. But it’s who has been left out that is turning heads.
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England has pulled another selection shock with X-factor bowler Mark Wood left out of the 12-man squad for the day-night Test match at Adelaide Oval that the tourists simply have to win.
Savaged spinner Jack Leach has clung on so far, but will have to wait until the toss on Thursday to learn his fate as England considers making multiple changes to the team that was destroyed in Brisbane.
Lambasted for entering an Ashes series without once-in-a-generation quicks Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad, England has once again pulled a move that nobody saw coming.
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Wood is the one English bowler who can make the ball sizzle and playing without him leaves the attack light-on for extreme pace.
The right-armer took 3-85 in the first innings at the Gabba, including the prized wicket of Steve Smith for just 12 runs and then dismissing Travis Head (152) to finally bowl the Aussies out.
Anderson and Broad are in the 12-man squad and expected to make the cut when captain Joe Root lodges his team, which for Broad would mean celebrating his 150th Test.
Anderson has 14 pink-ball wickets for England at an average below 20 while Broad has 10 wickets at 27.3.
Wood has never played a day-night Test match and was officially listed as ‘rested’ for the second match.
Anderson, who rates Adelaide Oval as his favourite venue outside of the UK, praised the job England’s attack did at the Gabba.
“I thought we bowled really well. We beat the bat a hell of a lot,” he said.
“I thought we stuck to our task brilliantly.
“Obviously it’s really difficult when you come in not having much cricket and then having to bowl those long spells, and come back spell after spell to try and back it up. I thought they did brilliantly.”
Anderson, 39, put his hand up to play the remaining four Tests.
“I came here wanting to be available for five and that doesn’t change now, I want to be available for the next four,” he said.,
“I think with the gaps between the next few games it might be a bit easier to get that rest in between and make sure everyone is fresh, but again that is something out of my control.”
ENGLAND’S UNHEALTHY RELIANCE ON ROOT EXPOSED
- Mike Atherton, The Times
“Atlas” they called George Headley, because he carried the weight of West Indies’ batting on his shoulders. Modern nicknames tend to the prosaic and England’s captain goes by “Rooty” but he carries a burden no less than the great George, as captain of a team who have won one Test in ten and as a batsman so far ahead of his team-mates he may as well carry a target around his neck at which bowlers can take ready aim.
In recent years, has there been an England batsman who has put as much distance between himself and his contemporaries? Possibly Graham Gooch in the early 1990s, but what Root would give now for a David Gower in his ranks - Gower scored two hundreds during the 1990-91 Ashes - even if it meant the kind of fractious relationship that existed between the two throughout that tour.
That uncomfortable distance is partly a reflection on how outstanding Root has been, but also how miserably the rest of the batting line-up has fared this year. Root has made over a thousand runs more than his nearest challenger (Rory Burns, 492 runs). While he is clocking in at an average of 64.33, no one else averages more than 40; only Dawid Malan averages in excess of 30. Root first; daylight second, as the saying goes.
Seven Test defeats in 13 games this calendar year? Park your analysis right there among the variety of collapses, of which the latest, eight wickets in a session at the Gabba, was the costliest. In the four Tests England have won, Root has made first-innings scores of 228, 186, 218 and 121. Great players have always carried an extra load but add in the captaincy and the burden is in danger of becoming intolerable. Some would like to see him take on the mantle of the main spinner as well!
Although the line-up has a makeshift feel, having not bedded down over any length of time, most are not novices. Burns, six blobs this year and facing a potentially torrid start against Mitchell Starc, is 31 years old and has played 30 Tests - five more than Chris Broad; Jos Buttler, still the owner of only two hundreds, is 31 and has played 54. Even Ollie Pope is 21 matches into his Test career. Of the top seven, only Haseeb Hameed is at that novice stage, finding his way, and he looked as composed as anyone at the Gabba.
Given these batting frailties, it remains a puzzle why common consent is that day-night matches offer England the best chance of winning. For sure, they should help their beleaguered bowlers find more movement (with a pink ball in Australia, seamers take wickets at 6 and a half runs per wicket cheaper than with a red Kookaburra, suggesting more movement) but this movement will challenge the flaky batting line-up as well at Adelaide. No day-night game has ended in a draw, which, depending on your glass half-full/empty viewpoint, will either encourage or worry you.
History does not augur well. Australia have won all five of their night matches at the ground, and have never lost a day-night game, whereas England have lost three out of four day-night Tests they have played, with defeats coming in Adelaide, Auckland and Ahmedabad. Auckland is a particularly painful memory, as England flirted with a record-low score, as Tim Southee and Trent Boult ran amok.
A glimmer of hope for the second Test that starts Thursday comes from the injury to Josh Hazlewood, which will necessitate a shuffling of the three-card fast bowling pack that has served Australia so well. Accurate and nippy, Hazlewood has a fine record with the pink ball. His likely replacement, the 25-year-old Western Australian Jhye Richardson, has played only two Tests but is skiddy and skilful.
Richardson comes with a big endorsement from former great Greg Chappell. “He would be sensational under lights, if he bowls like I know he can bowl. He’s quick, he’s accurate. He doesn’t get the bounce that a Hazlewood gets, but he’ll be a different angle and a different sort of height,” Chappell said. Richardson has taken his wickets at 21 in first-class cricket, and is clearly no slouch.
More concerning is the emergence of Cameron Green as a bowler. Until last week Green had not taken a Test wicket and had given more notice of his talents as a hard-hitting, orthodox batsman. We saw little evidence of that in the first Test, as he shouldered arms to a ball from Ollie Robinson that rocked back his off stump, but his bowling caught the eye, as he generated steep bounce and decent pace from his 6ft 6in frame.
The all-rounder position is one area in which England have traditionally held an advantage and Ben Stokes remains a wonderful cricketer. But unlike other Australia all-rounders in recent years, Green looks like a genuine contender with bat and ball. He began life as a quick bowler, before stress fractures limited him, but if he stays clear of injury, he should allow Pat Cummins the luxury of a five-man attack with no weak link. There will be little respite for England’s under-pressure line-up.
So much of the pre-Ashes discourse centred on England’s ability to take 20 wickets with a Kookaburra ball on flat(ter) Australian pitches, but all that won’t matter a jot if England cannot score enough runs. When Chris Silverwood took over as head coach, his demands were simple: big first-innings runs and relentless accuracy with the ball. England have managed 400 in their first innings only once in ten Tests - a match they won. In Adelaide under lights, it is time that “Atlas” got a helping hand.
THE UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS PLACED ON STOKES
After an underwhelming return from a five-month lay-off, Joe Root conceded that too much was expected of Ben Stokes in the first Test, but he has backed the England all-rounder to come good in the Ashes.
Stokes made five and 14 at the Gabba last week and looked short of match fitness, readiness with the ball in taking none for 65 in 12 overs and in the field during the nine-wicket defeat.
“It was a huge ask and I’m probably as guilty as anyone; I expected too much of him,” Root, the England captain, said. “It’s because I see him almost as a bit of a superhero. Look at what he’s done in the last few years when he’s played; at least once a series, maybe twice a series, he’s done something extraordinary which has won us a game on its own. And you do get a little complacent about expecting that.”
Save for a brief outing in the second of England’s rain-affected warm-up matches, Stokes had not stepped on to a cricket field since July 26 before the opening match of the series at the Gabba – having taken time off to recover from a finger injury and to protect his mental health.
“It’s easy to forget on a big occasion like that, whether it’s because he’s not played a huge amount and also what he’s had to go through recently as well, I think there was a bit too much on him,” Root said.
“But you know the character he is, it’ll have motivated him even more now to put in one of those magical performances. Whether that comes this week or further down the series, I know it’s going to come.”
If Stokes’s form is vital to any resurgence, then the 30-year-old’s fitness also holds the key to solving the selection dilemmas for the second Test in Adelaide that starts Thursday. In his newspaper column, Stokes insisted that he was fit and the knee injury he was carrying in Brisbane was an old one and nothing serious.
Root was more circumspect in his pre-match press conference, but would have had cause to reassess that judgment after a vigorous net session during which he was given a thorough going over by Stokes, who bowled at full pace.
If Stokes is fully fit, a balanced five-man attack is a possibility, which could yet mean that Jack Leach is retained. If England consider Stokes a risk and view him as a batsman, essentially, who may bowl some overs, then Leach could miss out and the attack would include four frontline seamers, with Root to shoulder the spin duties. The day-night, pink-ball element would encourage that thinking, although Travis Head, the Australia batsman and local boy, felt a patchy surface may encourage spin at some point in the game.
England could yet play five seamers because of the mauling that Leach – who went for 102 runs in 13 overs – took in Brisbane, although Root was quick to add context to the spinner’s difficulties there.
“As difficult as it was for him, he has had a couple of days to think about it and I’m sure he’ll be wanting to get straight back out there,” Root said. “Look at when he bowled: it was the best time to face spin. We only had 150 on the board, so there was not a lot working in his favour. If we’d gone later into the game, we’d have expected him to bowl more.
“They made a big, bold statement saying they were going to come out and attack him, put him under pressure, and when there is only 150 runs on the board and you’re one down, it is easy to go and do that. But that’s part and parcel of Test cricket. It is not going to get any harder than that for him. I’m sure he’ll come back strongly.”
Stokes’s fitness, the question mark over Leach and the fitness, readiness and identity of the seamers are the main selection decisions, given there will be no change to the batting line-up. Mark Wood looks favoured to play if his body holds up, and Root was thrilled with the extra pace and cutting edge he provided in the first Test, especially against Steve Smith, whom Wood dismissed cheaply.
“He’s certainly a great option to have,” the captain said. “We’ll see what conditions look like but if he is fully fit he is a very tasty prospect to have in your armoury, especially if it is going to move around as well as just raw pace. He beat the bat 23 times in his first 24 overs, which is so nice to see. Shame he didn’t get more reward.”
As for the grand old pairing of Stuart Broad and James Anderson, they should be better primed after a week of good weather and outdoor bowling in Brisbane, where they were seen daily in the nets with a pink ball.
“It certainly helps their case in terms of readying themselves,” Root said. “But having those two ready and fit to go is obviously a really good place to be. And it gives us plenty of options and plenty of good decisions to have to make going into the game.”
Whether both will play remains to be seen, given how well Ollie Robinson bowled in the first Test. But it seems inconceivable that, 15 years after his first appearance on this ground, Anderson will not return to the team to spearhead the attack in a match that England (and Root) cannot afford to lose. There is no better sight in cricket than Adelaide under lights, and England supporters may feel the same way about Anderson with a pink ball in his hand.
His experiences on this ground span the full range of emotions. In 2006, England lost a match having declared in their first innings, capitulating in a day-five squeeze orchestrated by Ricky Ponting’s outstanding team. Four years later, Anderson’s incisive new-ball spell set the tone for a wonderful victory under Andrew Strauss, achieved just before rain came teeming down. The Barmy Army’s joy knew no bounds.
Four years ago, under lights, Anderson took his best figures on the ground and his only five-wicket haul here. Root must hope that all that experience and knowledge will be valuable in a game that carries inherent volatility because of the way the lights and pink ball affect strategy. The twilight period is usually the best time to be bowling, and captains are mindful of having their key bowlers fresh for that point in time.
This article originally appeared in The Times
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