Daily Mail, Friday, August 16, 2019
THE ASHES SECOND TEST 83
THE ASHES
LAWRENCE
BOOTH
Wisden Editor
at Lord’sLanger’s
spoilt for
choice...
Aussie coach has bowlers to spare
O
n Wednesday
evening, after the
first day of the
Lord’s Test had
fallen foul of the
weather, Justin Langer
spoke of a dilemma that
must have had every other
coach in world cricket
drooling with envy. Mitchell
Starc or Josh Hazlewood?
That was the question.
The answer, Langer explained,
was Hazlewood, for the rather un-
Australian reason that he keeps
things tight — an unsexy notion in
an age where everything is sup-
posed to happen more quickly
and more often.
In one respect, this sounded
like good news for England,
who would at least be
spared the ordeal of
facing Starc at a
ground where, less
than two months
earlier, he had
produced the
ball of the
World Cup —
a laser-guided
yorker to detonate Ben Stokes’s
off stump.
Starc finished with four for 43
that day as Australia won with
ease, but he wasn’t even the most
successful bowler on show. That
was Jason Behrendorff, who col-
lected five for 44, and may never
play Test cricket.
And so the fact that Starc can’t
get a game, only a few weeks after
taking more wickets (27) in a sin-
gle World Cup than anyone in his-
tory, also became a shot across
England’s bows.
Also mixing the lime cordial at
Lord’s is the bullocking James
Pattinson, who was a handful at
Edgbaston and will return in next
week’s third Test at Headingley.
As England slumped to 138 for
six, before rallying slightly to
reach 258, it was tempting to won-
der whether any of their own
attack would currently be picked
in a composite XI. Since Jimmy
Anderson is out and Jofra Archer
on debut, it seems doubtful.
Coach Langer has been mocked
for his touchy-feeliness, a love of
mantras that sound as if they were
dreamed up at a 1970s Californian
getaway, and the removal of his
team’s shoes and socks ahead of
the World Cup semi-final against
England at Edgbaston so they
could feel the earth beneath their
feet. not the modus operandi of his
predecessor, Darren Lehmann.
And yet the selection of both
Hazlewood and Peter Siddle here
at Lord’s suggests a similar
absence of machismo. The 34-
year-old Siddle began the series
at Edgbaston with a brief to dry
England up, and duly conceded
only 80 runs off 39 overs.
Hazlewood, meanwhile, having
been omitted from the first Test
when he had been expecting to
play, removed Jason Roy in his
first over of the series and Joe
Root in his fifth. At lunch, he had
figures of 10-4-14-2. This is no
accident. Langer and his back-
room staff have sensibly con-
cluded that this England team are
never happier than when they are
feeling bat on ball, and preferably
hitting it for four. Starc, they con-
cluded, might be expensive, and
Australia are determined not to
supply the kids with any candy.
But their tactics are not based
exclusively on denial. Despite a
sluggish pitch, Pat Cummins sum-moned the brute strength to
bounce out Rory Burns, as he did
in the second innings at Edgbas-
ton, and later subjected Chris
Woakes to a similar working-over.
Two balls after hitting him on
the back of the helmet, he had
Woakes flapping fatally at another
short one. It was bowling that
takes conditions out of the equa-
tion, which is precisely why Eng-
land are so excited about Archer.nathan Lyon, the series’ early
leading wicket-taker with 12, con-
firmed that Australia have all
their bowling bases covered, even
if England were more willing to
attack him than they were in
Birmingham.
In that first Test, as Joe Root’s
side reached 282 for four in their
first innings in reply to 284, Aus-
tralia’s preference for a four-man
attack looked like a liberty toomany. But their bowlers are relent-
less and there are lots of them.
While England are already with-
out the injured trio of Anderson,
Mark Wood and Olly Stone, Aus-
tralia can rest and rotate to their
heart’s content.
By their own admission, Australia
got lucky at Edgbaston, where the
early injury to Anderson meant
they were up against a 10-man
team. But there is nothing fortu-
nate about their appraisal of Eng-
land’s thirsty batting, or their deci-
sion to bowl correspondingly dry.
«LORD’S GOES RED FOR RUTH SEE PAGE 13Wkts Ave
J HAZLEWOOD
Ashes 2019 3 19.33
Test Career 167 27.00
N LYON
Ashes 2019 12 19.08
Test Career 355 31.79
M MARSH
Ashes 2019 N/A N/A
Test Career 35 43.91
J PATTINSON
Ashes 2019 2 55.50
Test Career 72 26.97
P SIDDLE
Ashes 2019 3 42.66
Test Career 217 30.46
M STARC
Ashes 2019 N/A N/A
Test Career 211 28.20EMBARRASSMENT
OF RICHES...
BOWLERS IN AUSTRALIA SQUAD
In the groove:
Hazlewood (right)
dismisses Denly and
(below) Lyon
appeals for Stokes
GETTY IMAGES