England tilt towards Zimbabwean Gary Ballance to fill No 3 spot

BRAVE face though they put on the departure of Jonathan Trott, England now face a huge task to win an historic fourth straight Ashes series.

CRICKET-AUS-ENG-ASHES

BRAVE face though they put on the departure of Jonathan Trott, England now face a huge task to achieve their stated aim of winning an historic fourth straight Ashes series.

Only one England team in 100 years have come from 1-0 down in Australia to win and that was Len Hutton's side of 1954-55 - and they had a trump card in Frank Tyson, one of the most devastatingly fast bowlers the game had seen. Alastair Cook has no such ace to play now, unless he or Kevin Pietersen can rediscover their imperious batting form of three years ago.

Defeat in Adelaide this week is not an option. Even if they only come away with a draw, England must right the ship, calm the mood, and avoid a descent into the kind of misery that engulfed the 2006-07 tour after a game was lost at the Adelaide Oval that should have been won.

Quite apart from its impact on morale, Trott's withdrawal leaves a gaping hole. Since he came into the side at the Oval in 2009, only Cook has scored more runs or faced more balls, and from his second appearance, in Centurion later that year, Trott has been the preferred choice at No3, one of the hardest roles to fill.

Fortunately, the players have a break of 10 days between Tests to get their heads around the new situation. Nor is it long ago that they had to adjust - at shorter notice - to the loss of another major batsman, when Pietersen was suspended from the final Test of the 2012 summer. Although they narrowly lost that game, they gave a united and creditable performance and Jonny Bairstow, Pietersen's replacement, struck two half centuries.

So England must patch and mend. Their reluctance to move Ian Bell, the man of the summer series, from the No5 position that has brought him so much success will probably encourage a promotion for Joe Root from No 6 into Trott's position. Root's coolness amid the mayhem on the final afternoon at the Gabba, where he effortlessly rebuffed Australia's attempts to pile on pressure, was the one positive from a bleak day.

While there is logic to such a move, there is also risk. After all, Root lost his place as opener for Brisbane on the grounds that his movement was not decisive enough against the new ball. To bring him back up the order to No 3 - which could easily expose him to the new ball once more - looks contradictory and will certainly be jumped on by the likes of Shane Warne, who predicted that Root would be “crucified” by Johnson and Ryan Harris if he opened.

Who fills the No 6 spot vacated by Root depends on an assessment of the Adelaide pitch and on Tim Bresnan's fitness when he rejoins the squad today after his successful comeback match for the England Performance Program. If the pitch is as heart-breaking for bowlers as feared, Ben Stokes could make his Test debut even if Bresnan is passed fit. With the next two Tests coming back-to-back there will be a strong desire to protect the bowling resources.

The case against such a line-up is that with Matt Prior struggling to score runs, it would put a heavy onus on the top five.

A safer course, if the priority is to avoid defeat, would be to play a sixth batsman in Gary Ballance who, like Stokes, is uncapped.

Ballance would at least keep up England's quota of southern Africans. The time he spent in the middle in Alice Springs provided some sort of platform upon which to base his selection.

Yorkshire's coaches say that the Zimbabwean has a good temperament and plays situations well, and the word is that he can deal with pace.

Stokes' bowling could be an asset. His accuracy and ability to bowl reverse could be invaluable, though drawing lessons from Adelaide's past is complicated by the recent switch to a multi-sport venue with drop-in pitches. It is an easy ground to misread and given the need to shuffle their pack, England could easily come up with the wrong hand.

Given the innate caution of Cook and England's team director Andy Flower, perhaps the likeliest line-up has Root at three, Ballance at six and two seamers - James Anderson and Stuart Broad - supported by two spinners in Graeme Swann and Panesar. Panesar needs the ball to turn to be really effective though, and whether England are ready to have him back remains to be seen.

Whichever XI take the field, England must show more fight than they did in Brisbane. One of the problems is that this England team are short of people who relish a scrap in the wider sense, encompassing the verbal sparring that was such a feature at the Gabba.

Australia have hit England hard in the way that England did them in 2005, taking on opponents who had become comfortable with being on top. It can be a hard process to reverse.

The Sunday Times