Derek Pringle
All-out attack in the warm-up matches or do England need measured control? Derek Pringle ponders the dilemma...
The best way for the tourists to prepare ahead of Brisbane
The build-up to an Ashes series in Australia, those matches which allow acclimatisation and form-finding, are often an accurate predictor for what lies ahead. It would be a mistake to refer to them as ‘warm-up games’, at least according to Graham Gooch, a man who has visited Australia as either England player or coach more times than any other.
Gooch believes you must treat the preliminary matches with every bit the same intensity as the Tests. Everything, from selection of your strongest side to the way you approach each day of the match, must be geared towards winning it. Victory, he insists, about the only currency Aussies respect, builds morale like no other.
Take England’s lone Ashes success in Australia of the past 30 years, the 2010/11 tour. Like this one, that began in Perth, albeit against a Western Australian side sporting only a few quality players. Also, like this trip, there were just three matches before the first Test in Brisbane on November 23.
That 2010 match in Perth began tentatively with England conceding a small deficit on first innings. They quickly found their feet, though, winning by six wickets after Graeme Swann helped to dismiss the home side cheaply second time around.
The next game, against a South Australia XI, was drawn, but it performed a vital role in enabling Alastair Cook, who’d been struggling for runs, to score an unbeaten 100, something Strauss also emulated. England, having identified their most likely Test team the previous match, stuck with the same players.
Success in Australia is often highly dependent on one of the opening batsmen dominating, as it means the new ball has not been that effective for your opponents and Australia’s bowlers have been made to work hard for their wickets.
Obviously, Cook went on to have a stupendous series, scoring 776 runs at 127.6, something that needs to be reprised this time (we’ll settle for 500 at 62, Alastair), if England are to succeed in their quest of retaining the Ashes.
The team’s unerring focus was set for 2010/11, too, with Kevin Pietersen even eschewing the chance of a month’s holiday, prior to the tour, in favour of playing some cricket in South Africa. The team also went on a bonding exercise to Germany, though Pietersen has recently indicated that a couple of big nights out early on in the trip, where everyone got thoroughly “hammered”, brought the team closer together than any “ridiculous session in a German forest”.
The only problem is that Ben Stokes has scotched any opportunity of that happening this time, following his behaviour outside a Bristol nightclub five weeks ago, when he was filmed brawling at 2am in the morning. Now every Aussie armed with a cameraphone will be playing reporter, looking to reveal the slightest infraction that suggests England are a team in which discipline is scant and boozing profuse. Privacy will not be respected.
Seven years ago in the final match before the 1st Test, against Australia A in Hobart, England departed Gooch’s maxim of playing your strongest team by sending their first-choice bowling attack to Brisbane to acclimatise. Despite that, England won the match, a definite fillip ahead of the main event.
It has often been an Aussie ruse to have England teams playing in temperate Tasmania immediately before the intense heat and humidity of Brisbane, but Andy Flower, along with bowling coach David Saker, had other plans in 2010/11. This possessed a certain logic, though what helped was having England Lions based there as well, which gave Anderson and Co plenty of decent batsmen to bowl at.
On the current tour, England’s final match before the Gabba is in Townsville which, aside from being the birthplace of Mitchell Johnson (England’s nemesis last time), is even hotter than Brizzie. Perhaps the cunning plan has changed to knackering the Poms out before the opening Test with heat exhaustion instead.
The important thing, given Australia’s dominance at the Gabba, is to ensure that as few players as possible are undercooked going in to the first Test. Indeed, not losing at the Gabba in 2010/11, when Australia, having taken a first innings lead of 221, had two days to bowl England out was, Gooch reckons, the turning point of the tour. Instead, England made 517-1 declared to save the game, a statement of such intent that Strauss’ team were on the front foot for the remainder of the series, their blip at the WACA notwithstanding.
Four years ago, which saw England whitewashed five-nil in the Test series, the build-up was very different. Although none of the matches before the Tests were lost, there was deep
Although none of the matches before the 1st Test were lost last time, there was deep uncertainty as to which players represented England’s best XI
uncertainty among the team’s think-tank as to which players represented England’s best XI.
Again the tour began in the dry heat of Perth. Cook missed the match with a bad back while Joe Root and Michael Carberry slugged it out to see who might open with him when he was fit, a battle Carberry won, following the 78 he made there with a century in the next game at Hobart. Then there was the gambit, which didn’t work at the WACA, of bombarding opponents with tall pace bowlers – Steve Finn, Chris Tremlett and Boyd Rankin all topping 6ft 7in. Finn in particular had a wretched time as England desperately tried to get him firing for the opening Test. They failed and the injury-prone Tremlett joined Anderson and Broad at the Gabba as the third prong in England’s pace trident.
Selection looked a mess, at least for the places not settled. Worryingly, the current tour has similar issues, with England seeking two middle-order batsmen, as well as a bowler-cum-allrounder to replace Stokes.
The first part of the conundrum looks like it will fall to two out of Dawid Malan, Gary Ballance and James Vince, though, if England lose two of the first three Tests, there will be an urge to bring Ben Foakes in as the wicketkeeper/batsman with Jonny Bairstow a batsman only.
The second part, that of replacing Stokes, is not so simple. Possible solutions range from leg-spinner Mason Crane (the romantic’s choice), paceman Steven Finn (the optimist’s choice), or bowling all-rounder Craig Overton (the Somerset choice). None, though, can match the original.
It is a fluid situation and one England must resist tinkering with too much before the opening Test. History suggests that whichever team loses at the Gabba relinquishes the Ashes as well. It is not the only thing Root and his team need to be clear on when they reach Brisbane in a few weeks’ time.