The Times - UK (2021-12-22)

68 Wednesday December 22 2021 | the times

SportThe Ashes

‘Hard to see how Root carries’

on... ‘Stokes only other choice’

What changes, if any, would you make

for the third Test in Melbourne?

Mike Atherton Bring in Mark Wood and

Jack Leach, leave out Chris Woakes and

whichever one of the other three

seamers that conditions and/or state of

fitness demand. The batting needs

urgent attention, but given that no one

else has played any cricket, I would

give the same batsmen another chance

— with no confidence in that judgment.

Simon Wilde I’d like to see Zak Crawley

bat on Australian pitches as his game

ought to suit them. He could come in

for one of the openers or Ollie Pope,

who seems to have stopped trusting

his game. Reverse swing will be a

factor; Wood must play for Woakes and

perhaps Leach for Stuart Broad.

Steve James My XI would be: Burns,

Hameed, Malan, Root, Stokes, Bairstow,

Buttler (wkt), Robinson, Wood, Leach,

Anderson. The openers have one last

chance, but Pope may need to be

withdrawn from the fray. Jonny

Bairstow can add some firepower. The

tail is long without Woakes, but

England can win only if the top six

perform anyway. A spinner must play

and, if the management team do not

trust Leach, Dom Bess must come in.

How much blame should Chris

Silverwood take for England’s

confused thinking, and is he suffering

from the decision to axe Ed Smith as

national selector?

MA As the head coach and main

Bad preparation, awful

management and dim

picks... Times writers

give their verdict on

England’s awful start

Lengthy setback

raises fears over

Archer’s future

ganui, during the tour to New Zealand

in 2019, when on the deadest pitch

imaginable, Archer was dragged

through 42 overs, almost as many as

Jack Leach. He was used not so much as

a precious stallion but expendable

workhorse.

But his injury neatly encapsulates

one of the conundrums here: namely,

how far we should cut England some

slack. Clearly, bad luck and circum-

stance have hampered preparations, to

the point that, before the Gabba, it

would have taken an extraordinary

performance to compete there. Equally,

the way the County Championship has

been hollowed out means that there is

a trickle rather than flood of talent

coming through. (Try to come up with

a list of alternative openers or spinners,

if you think differently.)

But when basic mistakes are repeat-

ed, responsibility must be shouldered.

England have dropped, at a friendly

count, at least eight catches in two

Tests; two wickets have been taken with

no-balls; there have been two costly

collapses; two poor first-innings

returns; bad selections in both Tests,

and a questionable call at the toss in the

first. Poor cricket, poor management

and poor decision-making are all ac-

centuating the pre-tour disadvantages.

In any case, Australia’s victory in

Adelaide shows that good teams over-

come setbacks. Shorn of their captain,

Pat Cummins, the No 1-ranked bowler

in Test cricket, and Josh Hazlewood,

who also falls into the elite fast-bowler

category, Jhye Richardson and Michael

Neser stepped forward. They did not

let the side down, inexperienced

Test cricketers though they were.

Mitchell Starc grew into his elevated

role majestically.

Richardson, taking his maiden five-

wicket haul, produced a little extra on

the final day when Australia were

flagging, as his dismissal of Woakes,

which unlocked the door to England’s

flimsy tail, demonstrated. All four of

Australia’s seamers were faster than

England’s through the air and they hit

the pitch harder on a fuller length. Now

they have added the in-form Scott

Boland to their squad, the tall 32-year-

old Victorian who was 2018-19 player of

the year in domestic cricket.

Root was unusually direct in his post-

match criticism of his attack, accusing

his bowlers of lacking the courage to

explore a full length. This was another

echo of four years ago, when he criti-

cised his senior bowlers, Anderson and

Broad, for wasting the pink ball under

lights by bowling a yard or two too

short. He is the captain: maybe he

should demand it of them.

What was said to be a very “frank”

team meeting — led by players rather

than coach — was held in the immedi-

ate aftermath of the Adelaide defeat.

It is to be hoped that as much focus

was put on the batting as the

bowling: 11 times within the past

12 months England have been

dismissed below 200, and first-

innings scores of 147 and 236 will

win nothing in Australia. Without

Archer, England are floundering.

On this evidence they would be

floundering with him as well.

Mike Ather ton

Chief Cricket

Correspondent,

Melbourne

How injuries have taken

their toll

Jofra Archer has played in less than

half of England’s matches in all

formats since his debut in 2019

Archer’s matches

Total matches

Test

32

13 41% played

ODI 49% played

35

17

T20i 34% played

35

12

Total

102

42 41% played

That this Ashes tour has gone horribly
wrong needs little affirmation, but it
came with the news that Jofra Archer
had undergone a second operation on
his injured right elbow. The procedure
took place ten days ago, just as England
were sliding to defeat in the first Test at
the Gabba, and addressed his long-
standing stress fracture. It will preclude
the fast bowler from playing any cricket
until the summer at the earliest.
The 26-year-old’s elbow troubles are
worrying. He first suffered a stress reac-
tion on the 2019-20 tour to South
Africa, forcing him out of that series
after the first Test in Centurion. He
returned to cricket in the summer of
2020, but was forced home from the
tour to India in February this year. He
underwent a first operation in May, to
remove a bone fragment from his
elbow joint, followed by a significant
period of intensive rehabilitation.
It was in August that the ECB
announced that he had suffered a
recurrence; that he has now under-
gone a second operation must be
extremely concerning. He has
played 13 Tests, 17 ODIs and a
dozen T20 internationals
and is regarded as a critical-
ly important all-format
bowler, but there must be a
doubt now over his long-
term effectiveness and
whether he has a future
across all three forms of
the game.
For two years England
had trumpeted their Ash-
es plan, which involved
Archer leading the charge
of a phalanx of fast bowl-
ers to include Mark Wood
and Olly Stone. If you
can’t bowl ’em out, blast
’em out was the theory,
echoing a famous game
plan from an Ashes victory
under Len Hutton in 1954-
55, but Archer’s elbow injury
and stress fractures to Stone’s
spine mean that Wood, the
quickest of the three through
the air, is the last man standing.
Of course England chose not
to play Wood in Adelaide, prefer-
ring instead a sluggish five-man
seam attack of the type they
promised never to select
again for a Test in Australia.
In Adelaide four years ago
James Anderson, Stuart
Broad and Chris
Woakes bowled 88
overs between
them in the
first innings

for combined figures of 88-20-230-4.

Last week those combined figures in

the first innings read: 77.4-22-

234-4, a startling confirma-

tion of just how little Joe

Root has learnt from his

mistakes.

When Ben Stokes spent

most of the first innings in

Adelaide testing the middle

of the pitch — tactics that the

former Australia fast bowler

Craig McDermott called

“atrocious” — the absence

of a fast bowler and the

paucity of the thinking

had never been more

apparent. Members

of England’s think

tank seem unable

to gauge conditions

in front of them,

seemingly planning for

scenarios months in advance

without a capacity to react

nimbly. The five-seamer ploy

in Adelaide echoed that

of the pink-ball Test in

Ahmedabad in the winter,

when England played

four seamers on a raging

turner, and India three

spinners.

That Archer’s injury

offers mitigation against the

present situation is a red

herring, as England did not

necessarily use him wisely

when they did have the Suss-

ex bowler at their disposal.

Readers may remember a

Test match in Mount Maun-

Archer was used
as a workhorse by
England rather than
a precious stallion

Australia v

England:

Third Test

Starts Saturday, 11.30pm,

Melbourne

TV: BT Sport 1

Root trudges

off with Stokes,

who is the only

threat to his

role as captain