Anderson’s expertise offers tourists cause for optimism

England’s cricketers will be keen to make amends for the failings of their predecessors on the 2013-14 Ashes tour, during which the team imploded when faced with the irresistibly hostile bowling of Mitchell Johnson, backed up by the indefatigable Ryan Harris and aided by a healthy side dish of misplaced confidence.

Conventional wisdom suggests that an Aussie victory is inevitable thanks to home advantage, injuries to key English players, meaningless preparatory games and the absence of Ben Stokes, the team’s talismanic all-rounder.

Well, unlike many of my English compatriots, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion. In fact, Australia’s somewhat bizarre selections for the first Test have provided reason for optimism and whetted my appetite for Brisbane, even though England haven’t won a Test at the “Gabbatoir” since 1986. Rather than viewing the Baggy Greens as a superior outfit, I see two teams with remarkable similarities — neither Australia captain Steve Smith nor his England counterpart Joe Root has led their players in an Ashes series before; Smith and Root are their team’s star batsmen; both sides have flawed batting lineups; and both have decent attacks, albeit with England’s bowlers a tad older than their rivals.

Most observers note that England’s biggest problem is an attack that lacks the genuine pace required to trouble top-class batsmen on Australia’s hard, fast wickets where the ball rarely deviates from the straight once the early swing has disappeared.

It was hoped that Steven Finn would provide the speed, but the Middlesex player sustained a tour-ending injury before he had a chance to bowl a ball in anger.

Instead, England has turned to the inexperienced Jake Ball to provide the pace. The Nottinghamshire bowler’s participation was in doubt after he twisted an ankle in the first warmup game against the Cricket Australia XI in Adelaide, but Ball seems to have won his battle to be fit. England’s management team has been making encouraging noises and it now seems likely he will play.

However, speed isn’t everything. Glenn McGrath wasn’t express pace and he claimed a world-record number of Test victims, while South Africa’s tourists were victorious last year, despite Dale Steyn, the team’s fastest bowler, barely featuring as he picked up an injury during the first Test that kept him out of the rest of the series.

Lacking a bona-fide spearhead, maybe England should opt for unstinting accuracy and give big hitters such as David Warner and Steve Smith little to work with. In the 2010-11 series, James Anderson took 24 wickets in five Tests to ensure England’s victory against a far superior Aussie outfit than this one. Of course, he is six years older, but the Lancastrian is one of the fittest players on the international scene and few bowlers have his command of swing and guile.

Meanwhile, England supporters will also be hoping that Stuart Broad can produce a few spells like the one that brought him eight wickets for 15 runs against the Aussies in 2015.

Whatever the outcome, I’m really just hoping for an enthralling series … and that I’m not wearing too much egg on my face come January.