Pringle: Has Ashes battle started already?
Derek Pringle on how history offers England hope of another Ashes success this winter Down Under
For many England cricket supporters pondering the fate of this winter’s Ashes series, the symbolism will have been racking up of late.
Wasn’t it, for instance, England’s routing of Australia in the 2004 Champions Trophy at Edgbaston which stirred the belief and no compromise cricket that led to the Test team’s stirring reclamation of the little Urn 10 months later, the first time it had been in England’s possession for 16 years?
Many feel it was the trigger, Michael Vaughan included, for their success in that Test series, which is why their most recent win in Birmingham, by a crushing 40 runs via the Duckworth/Lewis method, is being seen in similar light.
It can be unwise to read too much into one white-ball win over the old enemy, however satisfyingly emphatic, especially when you come to extrapolate the reasons and dynamics for it into a redball series. One format, the shorter one, has changed markedly while the other has probably only advanced in the ways expected once science throws its weight behind honing professional standards.
Another caveat is that the forthcoming Ashes will be played in Australia not at home. Beating the Aussies Down Under is beyond tough and while South Africa – whom England play in four Tests this summer – did so recently, England have only managed it five times in the 18 series there since World War II.
That said, there are similarities between the two Champions Trophy wins, one being the similar number of players that would grace both teams, a mass injury event notwithstanding between now and the flight over there in the autumn.
In 2004, there were eight players, Michael Vaughan, Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Flintoff, Andrew Strauss, Geraint Jones, Ashley Giles, Steve Harmison and Paul Collingwood, who played in both the Champions Trophy side and the Ashes the following summer.
Though in Collingwood’s case that amounted to just the final Test.
In 2017, that number is six or seven, the fudge being over Chris Woakes who would surely have played the other day had he been fit. In fact, it could be eight should England decide to play both Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid this winter, something possible by virtue of having Ben Stokes able to fulfil a frontline bowling role.
And strong and consistent bowling is largely the secret to winning in Australia, though you generally have to post first innings totals above 340 for that to work. Of course, that assumes you will be up against a typically talented and combative Australia, something that may not happen if the current pay dispute is not swiftly resolved, which is not guaranteed after the puerile threats made by Cricket Australia and their chairman, David Peever, the unionbusting former director of Rio Tinto.
Conventional wisdom says that you need good fast bowlers to win in Australia. In 2010/11, when England were last victorious there, it was a group effort with James Anderson the attack leader taking 24 wickets in five Tests and Chris Tremlett taking 17 in three matches. Anderson, unless he gets injured, is likely to be at the vanguard again and could replicate his leading role providing the ball swings, something not always guaranteed with Kookaburra balls, even red ones.
Many feel Mark Wood, right, back from injury, could also be a spearhead with his 90 mph skidders. He certainly has a knack for dismissing the big names in a batting line-up, his three scalps at Edgbaston last week being Steve Smith, David Warner and Glenn Maxwell, as bigger trio of cheeses as you could wish to meet on a cricket field.
The one caveat, and it is one applicable for different reasons to Rashid, is will he be as effective when batsmen don’t have to go chasing run-rates in excess of six an over?
Allan Border, arguably Australia’s toughest ever cricketer, reckons pace bowlers mostly need to be tall to succeed at places like the Gabba, the Adelaide Oval and the MCG.
His argument is that good batsmen are more usually dismissed being brought forward than driven back, which means that edges have to carry from a defensive bat. Bowlers therefore need to make it bounce from a good length, something more likely to be the remit of tall bowlers like Tremlett (6ft 8in) than those barely 6ft, like Wood.
Now Steve Finn at 6ft 8in is tall, as to a slightly lesser degree is Liam Plunkett, but whereas the latter is now wonderfully consistent in his marshalling of the middle-overs for England in 50-over cricket, Finn has not really trained on.Yet, Plunkett played his last Test three years ago, which means a change of mindset is required on the part of those who pick the teams.
Other lanky bowlers who might come into contention over the summer are Jamie Overton and Middlesex’s Tom Helm, though both will have to improve upon their current achievements if they are to attract the attention of the selectors. Which means that Wood, providing he proves his body is ready for three spells of six overs a day, may well prove to be the best bet in an attack comprising two of Anderson, Stuart Broad and Woakes with Stokes to supplement their efforts.
At the moment the batting virtually takes care of itself, if not the order in which players will appear at the crease. If there is an opening for someone it could be a place in the middle-order, Jos Buttler not exactly grabbing the vacancy in the last Test series against India.
More interesting will be the decision surrounding Rashid and Ali. Are they mutually exclusive or can they play in the same side in Australia? Neither are what England desperately need from a spinner in Test cricket, someone who can bring control, but they are the best we have along with Mason Crane, who might put in a late bid for tour selection given his success in Sydney Grade last winter.
What is more certain is that if England do happen to win and retain the Ashes this winter people will look back to last week’s Champions Trophy match, in which Steve Smith was made to eat his words after claiming England were predictable and formulaic, and say that was the moment it all started.