Nasser Hussain’s guide to home bowling attack

AUSTRALIA is a better place than England to bat because of their Kookaburra ball and for that reason you need a balanced attack. Australia have that in the pace and accuracy of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, a left-armer in Mitchell Starc and an excellent spinner in Nathan Lyon. Here is what the England batsmen will face…

PAT CUMMINS

ACCURACY is his strength. He very rarely strays in line or length and is at you all the time at a very good pace, as Joe root has discovered in falling seven times to him across two ashes series. Cummins does not get massive swing or seam but he’s hitting top of off stump ball after ball and if anyone has any weakness he will exploit it. interesting to see how a fast bowler handles the captaincy but steve smith will help him out.

MITCHELL STARC

SWINGS the ball most from a full length and provides that left-arm variety at very good pace. rory Burns has struggled against that full length. starc also becomes the enforcer with a lot of short-pitched aggressive bowling to the tail.

JOSH HAZLEWOOD

CONSISTENTLY hits the seam, even with the Kookaburra ball, and is in between the lengths of Cummins and starc. Moves the ball in both directions and has been in terrific form with red and white ball. says he has to mentally remind himself, ‘chin on to chest’ to get himself following down a line. He’s got it back against right-handers, that’s for certain.

NATHAN LYON

BIGGEST skill is his bounce. He gets over-spin and because of that he gets dip. think of a tennis player putting top-spin on the ball. it dips at the last second.

Particularly good against left-handers and England will have four or five of them. He did struggle when india defeated australia because he bowled too straight to right-handers.

CAMERON GREEN

ALL-ROUNDER who can provide australia a fifth bowling option. Has had stress fractures and is a batsman first and foremost but he’s getting more confidence with the ball now he’s getting over his injury issues.