Pringle: Aussie attack will look for a bit of niggle
The shape of Australia’s bowling attack for the Ashes, assuming all main protagonists are fit, will betray their plans for England long before a ball is bowled. If that sounds like stating the obvious, the reasons are a bit more nuanced.
Since England last met Australia they have played 28 Tests, winning 12 of them, losing 12, and drawing the remainder. Of those won, much has been owed to the middle-order and below, an area not usually targeted by opponents when picking an attack. But Australia will have noted its potency and will be assembling the right plans and personnel to prevent it flourishing.
You could argue that worrying about how to remove numbers 6, 7 and 8 cheaply is getting ahead of yourself and that you need to knock over the top-order first. Certainly Alastair Cook and Joe Root will be prize scalps from the top five, but it really has been the combination of Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow and Moeen Ali, below, which has set up most of England’s victories with the bat, in particular the speed at which they have taken the game away from opponents.
In Australia’s last home Test, against Pakistan in Sydney, their bowling attack was Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon and Steve O’Keefe. But unless they are going to produce turning pitches and outspin England, a quartet containing two frontline spinners is unlikely to feature.
Much more likely is that they will have Starc, assuming he recovers from a stress fracture to his foot, and Hazlewood as pitch-it-up swingers and seamers with the new ball, the latter in particular being dedicated to working Cook’s outside edge. But they will need someone to pepper Bairstow and Moeen with short balls and at the moment Pat Cummins looks favourite ahead of James Pattinson with Starc also able to get batsmen hopping.
Both Bairstow and Moeen have endured their travails against the bouncer though not many teams have the sustained firepower to test them. Aussie teams, though, are remorseless at prising open old fault lines and reacquainting batsmen with past demons, and the pair can expect to duck, dive and hook, none their forte, a lot more than they usually do.
If that is a solid plan for those two, they will need something different for Stokes. Not many relish proper quick bowling but Stokes is one of those freakish players who bats with more assurance the faster the ball is propelled. His Test hundred at the WACA last time in Australia, when most of his team mates were cowed by Mitchell Johnson’s thunderbolts, was one of the finest Ashes hundreds – if not in value to team (England got thumped), then certainly in terms of standing firm in the face of superior firepower.
For Stokes, Australia may well take pace off the ball, using Lyon’s off-breaks to frustrate. He has been known to be lbw or bowled playing around innocuous spinners early in his innings before, though Stokes is one of those cricketers who seems to improve with
Both Bairstow and Moeen have endured their travails against the bouncer though not many teams have the sustained firepower
every Test he plays, so probably won’t succumb in that fashion more than once.
Indeed, his attitude and savvy now almost match his physical skills, though the gap that still exists between them will be one the Aussies will try to exploit by getting under his skin. After all, he is a single demerit point away from being handed a one-Test ban, so expect the niggling to be sustained starting, as it did last time with Stuart Broad and Kevin Pietersen, in the Press before moving to the lyrical finesse of the Aussie spectators and players.
Lyon is no Shane Warne, but no mug either and has proved an important cog for Australia. Although his record at home is not as impressive as it is overseas, he usually takes wickets. He usually does a good holding job, with an economy rate of 3.18 an over.
To counter that, England should look to attack him as Australia will Moeen, the disruption of a spinner having all kinds of tactical ramifications in a hot climate, especially when fielding a four-man attack as Australia are likely to do.
Most eyes will be on Cummins, the golden boy who has yet to deliver on the bullion promises of his youth due to a series of injuries. Having made a sensational Test debut as an 18-year old against South Africa in 2011, he has played just four Tests since, all in Asia.
Ominously, for Root’s team, he took 14 wickets there where England’s pace bowlers struggled, suggesting a man keen to make up for years of frustration in rehab. Pommie batsmen, especially the middle-order, you have been warned.