Boland v Bazball: a contest for the ages

Will England ambush Scott Boland and Pat Cummins men in the Ashes? It’s a contest for the ages.

Should Scott Boland be chosen for Friday’s first Ashes Test – and he absolutely should be selected – cricket is about to discover what happens when the paradox of the unstoppable force and the immovable object are inverted.

England’s top order carry the spears these days. It’s the bowlers, traditionally the aggressors, who tend to be lifting their shields.

Shrugging his shoulders in that unassuming way of his, Boland says he is only there to dry things up anyway.

“My role in this team is just to try and keep the scoreboard going as slow as possible. I like to bowl long spells to try and give the other bowlers a bit of a break if there’s gaps in that,” he claimed with no false humility.

“Obviously if I can keep the scoreboard going nowhere it makes the job easier for the other bowler at the other end.”

It is something of a bonus then that in doing that he has prospered, taking 33 wickets at a frugal average of 14.57 apiece in his eight-Test career.

Give pause and appreciate those numbers: 8 Tests, 33 wickets. 14.57. It’s a psalm, a song of joy, a reading from the glorious book.

Then anticipate and relish the thought of Boland versus Bazball.

Up from St James Square, in the posh bit of London, where they sell top hats, fine art and fancy furniture, Joe Root’s face is plastered along one of the menswear stores.

Modelling some nice-looking clobber, as they say in the less fancy parts, he scrubs up well and smiles from a video screen in the windows, and a series of billboards along Duke of York St. Twirling a bat and juggling cricket balls. Jacket thrown lazily over the shoulder. Nice knit. You know the look.

“It’s important to feel prepared and confident,” Root is quoted as saying in one of the advertisements. “You need to put the training in, think about your plan and make sure you’re comfortable in what you’re wearing.”

Whatever. Root is a decent man, a Yorkshireman, and the point here is not to mock him or lump him among the born-to-rule set who have inherited the wealth in these parts.

The imagery on the shop wall, however, is of another England.

Root, like Steve Smith (and Virat Kohli), has divested himself of the captaincy and is enjoying the rewards of a life unencumbered by the demands of leading a Test team. The side and skipper ground to a halt under his leadership in Australia where they were beaten 4-0 and moved zombie-like around the country, victims of a board that flogged them to fix the books and a pandemic that confined them to cages like animals in a travelling circus, allowing them out only to perform.

When Root and coach Chris Silverwood stood down in the wake of the Ashes disaster, England were reborn under new director of cricket Rob Key and the New Zealand pair Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes.

It has proved to be something of a revolution. England has won 11 of its past 13 Tests, scoring their runs faster than any team in the history of cricket.

On the opening day of the first Test against Pakistan at Rawalpindi they broke the land-speed record, notching up 4-506 from just 75 overs.

The runs in Pakistan came at a strike rate of 6.5 and put to shame the snail’s pace of Australia’s 450 runs at half that rate in the same venue some months earlier.

Basically they doubled Australia’s scoring rate. The once dour English side won 3-0 where Pat Cummins’ mob had, rightfully, been lauded for grinding out a 1-0 series victory on the 15th day of the contest. In the past 12 months England have bullied South Africa, Pakistan and New Zealand. They’ve chased down massive totals and bowled out sides on all but two occasions.

Root too has had a makeover. His first 29 Test centuries were scored by a batsman who scored at the quite acceptable strike rate of around 56. His last two, however, have come when he is scoring at strike rate of 76.

Boland made his debut against the old England, taking 18 wickets at 9.55, but the past is another country and the top order speaking a different language. Everywhere you look English batsmen are scoring at devilish speeds.

In Australia’s middle order Travis Head is celebrated for an average of almost 56 and a strike rate of 81.8 runs per 100 balls during the last World Test Championship cycle.

His opposite number in the England camp, Harry Brook is averaging 81.8 and doing it at essentially a run a ball (99.08).

They’re numbers to have the Church of England faithful jumping around like they were Southern evangelists.

Basically the entire top order is doing the same thing.

Ollie Pope, so tepid in Australia where he averaged 11, has been promoted to No. 3, seen his career average almost double and his strike rate move from 50.6 to 78.

Boland looked a little surprised when in the fourth over of his first spell at The Oval he suffered the indignity of being hit for a four by Cheteshwar Pujara and then another by Ajinkya Rahane a few overs later, but despite the relative onslaught he had 1-12 from six overs.

At Edgbaston England will be trying more of that and then some. Can the home side knock him off his line, rattle the bowler like they have every other attack?

“Bowling on the MCG for so long, I’ve always felt that as soon as I try to chase wickets I go for runs, so I just try and keep my game plan as simple as I can,” he said this week.