The Ashes 2017: Chris Woakes, Craig Overton save England from total embarrassment in Adelaide

ENGLAND all-rounder Chris Woakes is among the nicest men cricket. Yet it is clear the heat of Ashes conflict in Adelaide is causing even his competitive and confrontational juices to flow.

Chris Woakes takes evasive action as a short ball rears up.

CHRIS Woakes watched with growing dismay as England’s batting collapsed - but at least he enjoyed the sledging and slurs.

The Warwickshire all-rounder admits he is loving the verbal battles and has no desire to have the rampaging Aussies silenced.

Woakes is among the nicest men cricket. Yet it is clear the heat of Ashes conflict is causing even his competitive and confrontational juices to flow.

Chris Woakes takes evasive action as a short ball rears up.

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That’s great. It’s always good to hear from a Pom who won’t be cowed by the trash talk and Pommie-baiting.

Trouble is, the thing most worthy of trash talk on day three of the second Test was England’s batting.

So here goes…England showed poor shot selection, terrible execution, a lack of patience, a failure to capitalise on starts and a weird propensity for being out caught and bowled.

In fact, without Woakes and debutant Craig Overton, who put on 64 for the eighth wicket, England’s first innings would have been even more of an embarrassment.

“Yeah, of course you can enjoy cricket without the chat. But there’s such a rivalry between England and Australia, between the supporters and players. It’s brilliant,” Woakes said.

“It’s been around for years and will continue to be. It’s a great way to challenge yourself as a cricketer because you’re putting yourself up against the best in tough conditions.

“If you can come through that, you can gain some real confidence. It’s great to be part of it. I don’t think there’s much wrong with what Australia or ourselves have done.

Chris Woakes gets the wicket of David Warner.

“Chat on the field has been part of the game for so long, why would you want to take it away now? It’s something everyone enjoys, everyone talks about, certainly you guys are talking about it.

“Everyone has an opinion on whether it’s right or wrong. It’s part of the game and I’m sure it’s here to stay. The thing is to play the ball and not the occasion.”

There is a vast discrepancy between Woakes’ statistics in England and overseas. But he performed well here with 36 runs and then he removed Australia’s two best batsmen – David Warner and Steve Smith – under the lights.

It was the first time in the series that he has fulfilled his appointed role – all-round replacement for Ben Stokes.

When you look at the shots offered by some of the high-order batsmen - James Vince and Joe Root were prime culprits - it makes England’s dismal slide to 227 all out even more unacceptable. They must find a way of making centuries. Not thirties or fifties, but scores of three figures.

And Root, despite all the distractions and responsibilities of captaincy, has to show the way.

Aiming an ambitious drive when the pink ball is moving around is not the way to go.

Craig Overton impressed with the bat.

It says a lot about England’s batting that top-scorer Overton made 0, 0 and 0 in his only previous first-class innings on tour. He displayed decent ability and technique as well as plenty of courage when he was peppered with short balls.

He put many of his team-mates to shame.

“I thought Craig batted beautifully on debut, going to the crease in a tricky situation and getting plenty of verbals, as you would expect, and plenty of short stuff,” Woakes said.

“It’s obviously frustrating to be bowled out like that. But we’re here to stick together as a team. We didn’t play as well as we’d have liked, we need to continue to apply ourselves for long periods and make sure their four-man attack keep bowling more and more overs.

“If you can build a partnership, the ball gets softer and batting gets easier. That’s what we need to do as a team. We need to bat for longer periods of times. We need to get stuck into the battle.”

Root is finding this tour a tough assignment. England lost in Brisbane and then endured the frustration of his bowlers pitching too short when he chose to field first here.

Australia’s bowlers are targeting him hard and he played a lose drive in England’s first innings and sliced a catch to third slip.

Fast bowler Mitchell Starc said: “We’ve spoken a lot about Root over the last few weeks. He’s not in the runs yet but we know how good a player he is.

“We’ll have to get him out a few more times in this series to win the Ashes. He’s done it here before and he’s done it plenty of times in England, so he’s not someone you can take lightly.”

- The Sun

Originally published as The Ashes 2017: Chris Woakes, Craig Overton save England from total embarrassment in Adelaide