Mistakes were made in selection as well as batting, bowling and fielding but Australia can be beaten if improvements are madeLast month Jack Leach was out for dinner in Brisbane with Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad when a local approached them. “Hey guys,” he said, “I just want to wish you the worst of luck at the Gabba.” So far, so tedious, but then the man added: “It’s going to be a green seamer.” This amused Leach, who was thinking: “I’m not sure that’s the best sledge to two of the greatest bowlers that England have ever had”. The joke was on that gloating Aussie, until it wasn’t – because the pitch was indeed a greentop, and England somehow omitted...
Many expect a whitewash but this series may end up being closer than widely thought if England rally as Joe Root intends“I’m not just trying to make things up. I genuinely believe that if we’d taken our chances better, and handled that first innings better, we could be sat here in a very different position.” It would be easy to disparage Joe Root’s post-defeat comments as obvious and not useful, but the England captain’s press conference was one of his stronger displays.Root’s media appearances can often be limp, conciliatory towards nothing in particular, couching each defeat in terms of lessons that England need to learn while leading a team that never learns them. In the Carl Rackemann Indoor Centre beneath...
This team’s Ashes buildup began two years ago but in Brisbane they fell to factors that a well run side would have coped withEveryone has a plan until they get punched in the face. England started work on theirs two years ago. “Job No 1 is to help Joe to keep moving forward so that in two years’ time we can go to Australia and make a real impact,” said Chris Silverwood in his first press conference after he took over as England’s head coach.Usually it’s the players and coaches who say the press talk about the Ashes to the exclusion of everything else. This year it’s been the other way around: Silverwood has come back to his plans for...
While Root has had a brilliant 2021 at the crease, his teammates have let him down but Malan has come good at the right timeAnd on the third day, some hope. The game changed as that 159-run partnership between Joe Root and Dawid Malan stretched on through the afternoon, the miseries for England of the first two innings receded, replaced by the promise of a better contest ahead. Root’s 86 was a vital sign that his duck in the first innings was an aberration, while Malan’s 80 was, in a way, even more important. England won’t win anything if Root doesn’t score runs, but the truth is, they don’t necessarily win much when he does, either. He peeled off a...
Australia batsman knows only one way to play and his 150 at the Gabba was a classic of the genre with sixes and risks takenPerhaps it has had its time, but a staple of cricket commentary used to be nominating which player you would like to bat for your life. For those of my vintage, it was always Steve Waugh. Chewing gum, trudging, plonking his bundle of baggy green rags on his head, Waugh would rake his flat stare over a pitch and an opposing team as if he would literally rather die than give them his wicket. He kept his average above 50 by sheer force of will. He came across as the ultimate obdurate bastard, the man who...