Have England turned nasty in pursuit of the Ashes?

Either side of the Atlantic Ocean, a couple of hectic Test matches at Lord’s and Sabina Park offered plenty of clues for what is shaping up to be an Ashes tussle for the ages in Australia this summer.

While Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland atomised the West Indies in Jamaica, Ben Stokes’ England team won a classic against India at Lord’s, in a game that was marked not only by plenty of tension but also an elevated level of spitefulness.

England’s Jofra Archer celebrates the dismissal of India’s Washington Sundar at Lord’s.Credit: AP

That aggression, England’s players have revealed, was to a certain degree premeditated. No one used the words “headbutt the line”, like Nathan Lyon famously said Australia would ahead of the 2017 Ashes, but it was patently clear that under Stokes and Brendon McCullum, England are now willing to be nasty if it means lifting the two bilateral trophies they care about most. England last won a Test match on Australian soil in January 2011.

Here are the key factors at play looking ahead to this summer’s Ashes.

The return of Jofra Archer

Of course, it helps the verbal jousting if it can be backed up with the kind of speed and hostility afforded England by the return of Jofra Archer. Alongside Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson and company, Archer offers a fast-bowling threat that has the potential to trouble Australia: something underlined by how Shamar and Alzarri Joseph got the Australians, young players and old alike, hopping around in the Caribbean.

Among 15 redundancies at Cricket Australia this week was the exit of Alex Kountouris, the governing body’s head of sports science. Over a long and distinguished career, Kountouris was one of the leading figures in devising Australia’s world-leading approach to keeping their best fast bowlers fit.

Nearly a decade after they started playing regularly together, the durability of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Starc and their splendid back-up Boland has been the greatest competitive advantage for the Test side.

England, by contrast, have been a walking casualty ward as far as fast bowlers are concerned, epitomised by how Archer has spent virtually six years trying to find a way to stay on the park. Wood and others have struggled similarly, leaving the ECB’s Rob Key to lament the difference.

“I always find it slightly frustrating how they managed to keep those bowlers fit for almost everything,” Key told the (London) Telegraph last month. “That’s the dream, isn’t it? Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood, with the era that they’ve had, it’s been a lot because of those guys. That’s the holy grail, really, being able to keep your best bowlers fit like that for as long as possible.”

For England, the sight of Archer steaming in at Lord’s, making a quantifiable difference to the match and how it was played, was dreamy indeed as far as the Ashes are concerned. While it is still a long time between now and the first ball in Perth, Archer’s availability will be a huge factor in the series.

The ugly Englishmen?

It was Archer who spoke most frankly about how England turned a corner in terms of their decision to start sledging India during the Lord’s Test. That turn, once taken, can be hard to reverse – just ask the 2018 Australian side.

“We all came together as a group yesterday, and said, ‘We’re a bit too nice’,” Jofra Archer said after England’s narrow victory. “When we go to other places, some teams aren’t as nice to us as we are to them. I guess we just tried to shift it.”

In the Bazball era, England have been many things to many people. Saviours of Test cricket, tactical revolutionaries, self-appointed role models for the rest of the world, and compulsive producers of flowery rhetoric about all of the above.

But as they get to the pointy end of the project with the India series and then the Ashes tour, it’s clear that Stokes and McCullum are concerned more than ever about being winners, whatever it takes.

Sam Konstas was bowled for 25 in the second Test in Grenada.Credit: AP

That’s an intriguing juncture, given how much of Australia’s recent success has been derived from taking a more holistic view, and trying to stay level irrespective of results.

In September, Lord’s is due to hold a glitzy $500 per head (in the cheap seats) dinner with Eoin Morgan, Kane Williamson and Stokes to memorialise the 2019 World Cup final at the ground. A big dinner to mark a Cup final that took place six years ago is a reminder that English cricket has relatively few major wins to hang on to over their history – it’s difficult to imagine such a fuss being made in Australia about the 2023 World Cup victory, for example.

So, with an enormous amount at stake, Australia should be ready for the English red mist to descend this summer. It has equal chances of helping or hurting the Bazball cause, but it will certainly add to the theatre.

Australia’s batting order, or battling order?

Since his Boxing Day starburst, Sam Konstas’ exposure to Test cricket has been a brutal one. But he’s far from the only member of the Australian top six with question marks over their methods and places in the team.

The national selectors will be compelled to cast widely around for a sturdy opener to partner Usman Khawaja this summer, not least because 38-year-old Khawaja is not exactly at his best either.

With the benefit of some time out of the side and a pre-season to work on his game, there is every chance that Marnus Labuschagne may slot back into the XI against England, provided he shows that a technical and tactical reset has refreshed him.

Other Australian players of high quality against pace bowling include the likes of Josh Inglis, Mitch Marsh, Marcus Harris, Jake Weatherald, Nathan McSweeney, Matt Short and Campbell Kellaway.

Of those, only Harris, Weatherald and Kellaway are specialist openers. All are left-handed.

What is critical for Cummins and company is that the top two provide something of a buffer for Cameron Green at three and then Steve Smith and Travis Head at four and five. Smith and Head are much-diminished threats against a brand-new ball, and Green is still new to first drop.

Superman Stokes, big Beau and the Green machine

Among the biggest differences between this summer and the 2023 Ashes will be that, so far at least, Stokes has regained the all-round abilities that made him such an explosive cricketer in the first place.

Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes.Credit: Getty Images

Regarding bowling long spells, Stokes talked about going to “dark places”, sounding like a Northumbrian King fighting off the Vikings.

Dark places or not, Stokes’ pace and swing at Lord’s made a huge difference to the outcome, balancing the England side in the way that Australia have lately been able to do with Green and Beau Webster. Whether there is room for both Australian all-rounders is open to debate, as Green works his way back slowly from back surgery.

During the 2021-22 Ashes summer, infamously “scrubbed” from the records by Stuart Broad, it was actually Green who troubled England’s best batter Joe Root more often than not, finding the bounce and movement to turn Root’s pet deflections through gully into thin edges behind.

Stokes, of course, has a recent history of knee and hamstring problems. Like Archer, he will be fighting dual battles against Australia and his own body.

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