Vital that Root starts to convert half-centuries into big scores
THE big gest battle in thi s Ashes series will be between Steve Smith and Joe Root. Whichever of them can score more runs over the five Tests will go a long way to winning the urn for his team.
The tactical decisions they make as captains will be crucial, too, but if England are to have a chance of keeping the Ashes, Root is probably going to need to make a huge amount of runs.
Root is a fraction more positive than Smith, but he needs to be more disciplined for longer periods at the crease. He needs to make Australia bowl him out, rather than getting past 50 and then giving it away. Joe simply doesn’t convert enough of his halfcenturies into big hundreds, and Smith is more effective in that area.
Look at the numbers. Smith has 20 Test centuries and 21 fifties, a conversion rate of nearly 50 per cent. Root, on the other hand, has 32 fifties and only 13 hundreds. Because Joe is naturally such a positive player, he needs to remember that he will always score relatively quickly. He doesn’t need to go after the bowling.
Joe is really aggressive and busy, which are great qualities, but it is important to show patience, too. Australia’s bowlers will try to target a fifth stump line and try to tempt Root to play away from his body, which has happened on a few occasions. He loves to punch off the back foot and has sometimes opened the door for fast bowlers when doing so.
Australia will believe that the extra bounce on their wickets makes Root more vulnerable to catches behind or in the slips. England will bowl a similar line at Smith, though they will possibly keep the ball slightly fuller.
Smith is more of a bullish character than Root. Whenever I came across Smith, he was very aggressive out in the middle — towards the opposition, towards the umpires, and even his own team-mates on a few occasions. Root is more laid-back, but this will be an incredibly tough tour for him as a leader, especially if one of his key seamers, Jimmy Anderson or Stuart Broad, picks up an injury.
He will need to lean a great deal on his senior players, like those two and Alastair Cook. Root was in Australia for the 2013-14 tour, when England were whitewashed 5-0, so knows how difficult it can be there. He understands what it is like when the Australian media and supporters hound you but, hopefully, those experiences will stand him in good stead.
A few weeks ago, I thought Australia were massive favourites to hammer England, but now I see their squad for the first two Tests, I am not quite as worried — and there is always a glimmer of hope that Ben Stokes might appear out of nowhere to help England’s cause.
The selection of Tim Paine as wicketkeeper seems bizarre, especially when you consider that he has not scored a first-class hundred since 2006. Darren Lehmann, the coach of Australia, has a century in first-class cricket more recently than that.
Then I look at the back-up bowlers, Jackson Bird and Chadd Sayers. They are both decent cricketers but neither is anything like as threatening as the main three: Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood. Those three have had injury problems during their careers, so there must be a chance that at least one of them will struggle to play all five Tests.
I believe both Chris Woakes and Jake Ball can have good series, too. I know Jake very well from my time at Nottinghamshire. He has decent pace and generates good bounce, meaning he can test a batsman’s technique around off stump.
I am hoping that this will be the tour that establishes Chris as one of the best bowlers around. He was outstanding for England in 2016 and there is no better place to show your skills than an Ashes series in Australia.
A prediction? It will be much closer than I thought it would be only a few weeks ago. If Stokes is somehow involved, it might be decisive for England but, if not, I take Australia to claim a 3-2 win. I am certainly expecting an extremely exciting battle.
This will be a tough tour for Joe as captain and he will need to lean on his senior players at times