Section:GDN 1N PaGe:36 Edition Date:190808 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 7/8/2019 20:18 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Thursday 8 August 2019
(^36) Sport
Cricket
1 Draw strength from comebacks
past
Joe 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.
England just need to do what
they did last year, after losing the
fi rst Test of the summer to Pakistan:
make three changes, bowl well, bat
solidly, win comfortably. Now, as
then, the second Test is one they
cannot aff ord to lose. The diff erence
is the extra pressure that comes with
the Ashes – but England’s World Cup
stars have already played four must-
win matches this summer, under
immense pressure, and won the lot.
2 Pick Archer
Three months in, Jofra Archer is
Pick Archer, limit Root’s
options and make better use
of Buttler’s brain – key steps
to turning the series around
already having a very interesting
international career. He started the
World Cup as a novice and ended
it as England’s spearhead with 20
wickets. He then became perhaps
the fi rst England cricketer ever to
be rested from a Test before he had
played one. At Edgbaston Root and
Trevor Bayliss erred on the side
of caution by leaving Archer out
when he was considered fi t by Jason
Gillespie, his coach at Sussex and
fellow member of the fast bowlers’
union. Asked to prove his fi tness
by playing for Sussex 2nds, Archer
promptly turned into Superman ,
taking six wickets and making a
hundred in the same day.
He is now a near-certainty for
Lord’s, where he needs to treat the
Australians not as he did when he
last faced them there (one for 56),
but as he did when they met again at
Edgbaston in the World Cup semi-
fi nal ( two for 32 ). Ideally he will
do to them what Steve Harmison
famously did at Lord’s in 2005 and
leave a few dents in their helmets,
not to mention their self-esteem.
3 Hand Root and Bayliss fewer
options
Ed Smith, England’s chief selector,
sees it as his job to give the captain
and coach options for the fi nal XI. At
Edgbaston he may have given them
too many: a squad of 14, containing
England can fight
back in the Ashes
... here is how
Tim de Lisle
pick themselves: Burns, Roy, Root,
Stokes (bowling less because batting
at four), Buttler, Bairstow, Curran,
Woakes, Archer, Broad, Leach. With
Stone pulling up lame , the spare
seamer can be Toby Roland-Jones,
who knows the Lord’s slope, made
a sparkling start to his Test career
in 2017 and is now taking fi ve-fors
again after a serious injury.
4 Bring back Buttler’s brain
One minute Jos Buttler was
England’s man for all seasons;
the next he was demoted to allow
Stokes to resume the Test vice-
captaincy. This was baffl ing, as
Buttler had done nothing wrong
and Stokes, for all his strengths,
had unmistakably let the team
down with the Bristol incident. If
the argument was that Stokes had
shown leadership in the World Cup
fi nal, well, Buttler had too. Root
compounded the error at Edgbaston
by shifting Buttler to short -leg, so
that England’s best cricket brain,
after Eoin Morgan, was no longer
part of the conversation in the slips.
For his part Buttler has to make
some runs. He managed 5 and 1 in
the fi rst Test, joining Bairstow and
Moeen in the melancholy club of
gifted strokemakers who have yet
to reach double fi gures in a Test this
summer. Buttler, since his recall
in May 2018, remains second only
to Root for Test runs and top of the
class for Test fi fties (nine, to Root’s
six), and he recovered from an
equally poor start last year. But if he
and Bairstow fl op again, one of them
will surely give way to Ben Foakes,
who brings more glue.
5 Call Karl and say sorry
After the Lord’s Test against
Ireland Root complained about the
pitch being “substandard”. It was
certainly a green top and Root was
right to feel that the game “wasn’t
even close to a fair contest” between
bat and ball. Saying so in public
seemed hard on the MCC’s new
groundsman, Karl McDermott, and
also uncharacteristic of Root – who
may now be kicking himself, as a
piece of green unpleasant land is
exactly what he could do with to see
off Steve Smith.
On a fl at pitch Smith is Bradman
revisited but, on something more
spicy, he is as wobbly as the next
man. At Edgbaston and Trent Bridge
in 2015 he made 7, 8, 6 and 5, falling
to Steven Finn (twice) and Broad
(also twice), thanks to three nicks
and a slice. There is a Barmy Army
chant in there somewhere.
seven seamers. Root and Bayliss
were like children in an ice-cream
parlour, spurning the sharp fl avours
- Archer’s polished pace, Olly Stone’s
raw power, Sam Curran’s left-arm
swing – in favour of vanilla, mid-
80s right-armers. The seam attack
of Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad,
Chris Woakes and Ben Stokes had
lost their previous two home Tests
as a unit (against India at Trent
Bridge last year and West Indies at
Headingley 2017) and duly added
a third, though they could not be
blamed for Anderson’s injury.
Smith may well decide to get
tough, drop Moeen Ali and Joe
Denly, and hand Root and Bayliss a
squad of only 12. The fi rst XI almost
Stone’s back
injury further
limits England
pace options
Olly Stone will miss the second Ashes
Test after being ruled out for at least
a fortnight with a back injury. The
England pace bowler, who was injured
in training on Tuesday, joins fellow
pacemen Jimmy Anderson and Mark
Wood in being unavailable for the
Lord’s Test starting next Wednesday.
Paul Farbrace, Warwickshire’s sport
director, told the county’s website:
“It’s really disappointing for Olly that
he’s been ruled out of action for such
an important two weeks of cricket
because of a reoccurrence of his back
injury. At the moment there’s a bit of
infl ammation but he will undergo a
scan so that we know the full course
of treatment he can undertake with
the club’s medical team and with the
support of the ECB.
“In the meantime he needs to rest
up before he can get his body strong
again and ready to deal with the
demands of being a fast bowler.”
Stone made his Test debut against
Ireland last month and was in the
squad for the fi rst Test at his homeground Edgbaston but did not play
in the heavy defeat by Australia. The
25-year-old would have been back in
contention at Lord’s, with Anderson
ruled out until at least the fourth Test.
The third Ashes Test at Headingley
begins on 22 August , making Stone’s
availability highly unlikely.
Jofra Archer is expected to replace
Anderson and make his Test debut at
Lord’s after his exploits on Tuesday
when the 24-year-old took six wick-
ets and scored a century with the bat
playing for Sussex’s second XI. He fi n-
ished with fi gures of one for 78 from
19 overs yesterday as Gloucestershire
were all out for 279. That leaves Sussex
requiring 37 for victory.Back on familiar ground Travis Head scored an unbeaten century on his
return to his former club as Australia dominated the opening day of their tour
match at New Road. Head, who played for Worcestershire last season, made 109
not out from 173 balls as part of his side’s total of 266 for fi ve declared, before the
home side lost three quick wickets in reply. Tom Fell was trapped lbw for a duck
by Mitchell Starc before Josh Hazlewood struck twice late on. PA MediaRYAN PIERSE/
GETTY IMAGES▲ Olly Stone has been ruled out for at
least two weeks with a back injuryJoe Root could use a clear
head, Jofra Archer must
play and Jos Buttler
had a poor fi rst TestРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS