Enlist Jofra Archer, limit Joe Root’s options and make better use of Jos Buttler’s brain – how England might turn things roundJoe Root’s England have made a habit of losing one Test in a series. In his collection of home results, Root has a 4-1, a 3-1, a 2-1, a 1-1, and now a 0-1. The only visiting team not to get a Test off him are Ireland, who came close. The good news for the England fan, forever fretful, is that each of these home defeats has been followed by a victory. Related: Australia have a 'clear plan' how to wrap up Ashes series, says Justin Langer Continue reading...
It makes no sense that James Pattinson can hit the England captain’s stumps but not take his wicket simply because the bails remain onIt’s the end of the 21st over of England’s first innings at Edgbaston. The Australian quick James Pattinson is finishing his seventh. He’s been rapid, moved the ball through the air, threatened constantly. He bowls the England captain, Joe Root, a combination of all three. Angle in towards the stumps, a hint of swing. Straightening off the seam to beat Root’s shot as he steps across to try to cover the line. A wooden sound, and the umpire gives him out caught behind.Root’s review reveals a spike on the waveform sound-tracking graph. But not when the ball...
Australian fast bowlers against English batsmen has been the defining contest in this most famous of sporting encountersThere are the usual signs that it is getting closer. The Ashes white noise starts to fade. The Ashes hum starts to die back, wider current of Ashes anxiety to fall away. And suddenly Test cricket begins to pare itself back to the basic, atomic level business of Australian bowlers against English batsmen, Baggy Green in the field against starchy whites at the wicket. Look back and cricket’s oldest two‑hander has so often pegged itself out this way. Hence, perhaps, the strikingly emotive response to Joe Root’s announcement that he will move up one space to bat No 3 for England in Thursday’s...
England have become aggressive, flexible and free-thinking, an approach more in keeping with Michael Vaughan than Alastair Cook or Andrew StraussEvery England fan needs a plan for how to follow a winter series. These last few weeks I’ve been lying in bed listening to coverage of the first session or so through an earpiece, which meant there were moments in the early hours, half awake and half asleep, when England’s victory seemed something like a dream, the work of some undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese. It was not just that they won, though they had not managed to do that in any of the rest of the 13 overseas Tests they had played...
After England’s heavy defeat to India at Trent Bridge, captain Root must lead from the front at the Ageas Bowl Related: Jonny Bairstow ‘desperate’ for England wicketkeeper role after injury Continue reading...