Daily Mail - 16.08.2019

Daily Mail, Friday, August 16, 2019

85

THE ASHES

NASSER

HUSSAIN

at Lord’s

Flimsy

England

are out

of order

I

t WAS the same old

story from England.

How often have we

seen batsman after

batsman getting in

and then out, leaving Eng-

land needing some lower

order runs to bail them

out. they just looked

really flimsy yet again.

Only one person in this side,

Joe Root, is averaging in excess

of 40, and that tells you every-

thing you need to know about

the on-going batting problems

of this England side.

that’s why it made me cross

when England seemed to be

considering bringing in another

all-rounder, Sam Curran, for this

second test, instead of their

No 4 Joe Denly (below).

Somewhere they need to find

specialist batsmen who can con-

tribute big runs.

Yes, Josh Hazlewood bowled

brilliantly when this match

finally got underway yesterday,

but this was hardly a repeat of

those times, like

against Ireland here

a couple of weeks

ago, when there has

been plenty in the

pitch.

this was just a

normal test pitch

that did a little bit

and somehow Eng-

land found them-

selves 138 for six.

they do not help

themselves, either,

with their lack of

attention to those

little details that have to be

right if you are to succeed at

test level.

I still think opening the bat-

ting in a test in England should

be a specialist position. Some-

one like Jason Roy will probably

only come off once in about 20

innings playing the way he does

at the top of the order.

He is obviously a special talent

in the white-ball game but at

this level against the moving

ball I maintain that Roy’s best

position in test cricket is in the

middle order.

England should not be chop-

ping and changing every other

test as they did in the bad old

days of the 1980s and ’90s, so I

can understand it if they want

to give Roy a longer chance to

get it right as an opener.

You are allowed, though, to

have a rethink and there will

have to be a discussion among

the selectors as to whether Roy

at the top of the order is work-

ing. No one is saying he cannot

go out and smash a hundred as

a test opener, but it is the con-

sistency of grinding out runs

and whether he can leave the

ball better and play with softer

hands.

Denly played well yesterday

and got out to a very good ball

but the challenge he faces, along

with Rory Burns, is that the

more the opposition see of you,

the more ways they will find to

get you out. Hence the effective

short stuff here.

Root is a worry because he is

getting out lbw more and more

frequently. the captain has

changed his trigger movement

slightly, to back and across,

because he was getting out in

the channel outside off-stump.

the problem now is that bowl-

ers are going straighter to him

and having success. It is some-

thing Root must iron out.

Another of those finer details

can be found in the

batting order,

because you cannot

tell me Jos Buttler

is currently a better

red-ball batsman

than Ben Stokes.

I couldn’t see any

reason why Stokes

should not bat at

No 5 yesterday, par-

ticularly as he hasn’t

bowled for some

time. I could under-

stand it if he’d just

bowled 30 overs and

England were batting second.

But not yesterday.

Buttler had his success against

India last summer by shuffling

down the pitch as the bowler

ran in and meeting the ball

before it moved. Now he seems

a little stuck on the crease.

He spent so much time prepar-

ing for the World Cup that he

hasn’t had any focus on red-ball

cricket. He now looks short of

confidence and out of nick.

If I’d won the toss yesterday I

would have chosen to bat

because the pitch is dry and I

think it will take more and more

spin.

But with the shortened game

and more rain expected today,

maybe both captains felt the

best way to win the game was

for them to try to bat once.

Also, tim Paine would have

thought about an England bat-

ting line-up struggling for confi-

dence and decided he would

have a little look at them early

on.

It could have been worse for

England than 258 all out if

Australia had held their

catches.

T P SPIN AT THE TEST

LAWRENCE BOOTH AT LORD’S

NATHAN LYON sounded

humble after taking

three for 68 yesterday to

draw level with Dennis

Lillee on 355 Test wickets

— the joint third-highest

tally in Australian

history, with only Shane

Warne (708) and Glenn

McGrath (563) ahead of

him. ‘I really struggle to

see myself up with the

likes of Warne, McGrath

and Lillee,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t sit well with

me. They’re true legends

of the game.

‘I’m just some bloke

who’s trying to bowl

off-breaks and make

Australian fans proud of

their team.’

HUMBLE LYON JOINS THE GREATS

BY 7pm last

night, £382,462

had been raised for

the Ruth Strauss

Foundation at Lord’s

and online. Former

England captain

Andrew Strauss,

whose wife died last

year from cancer,

was ‘chuffed’ by the

figure after Lord’s

turned red in Ruth’s

memory.

CAMERON

BANCROFT

(right) was

described by

Steve Waugh as

the best short-

leg fielder he

had seen, and it was hard to

argue when he caught Rory

Burns at the second attempt

off Pat Cummins. That was the

11th catch Bancroft has taken

at short leg, where he is yet

to drop one in 10 Tests.

WHEN Stuart Broad bowled David Warner for

three, it was the third time this series he had

dismissed him in single figures from round the

wicket. The overall tally is three for 11 in 29 balls —

after Broad failed to take Warner’s wicket at all in

the previous two Ashes series, from 309 balls.

Ducking the issue: Denly takes evasive action

Out with a

shout: Tim Paine

(left) and Steve

Smith celebrate

the wicket of

Ben Stokes REX

PICTURE:

ANDY

HOOPER

7

ENGLAND’S team has

seven players whose

first name begins with ‘J’.

This is the highest number

of players whose name

starts with the same

letter in a team in

Test history!