Fringe men get call as Ali searches for his Mo-jo
ENGLAND arrived in Perth yesterday knowing that their wafer-thin chance of retaining the Ashes rests on them pulling off only their second-ever Test win at the WACA.
The first came way back in 1978 and that was against an Australian team severely weakened by defections to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket.
History then is stacked against Joe Root’s team, particularly when you take into account England have lost their past seven Tests in Perth. Even when they won the series in 2010-11, they were hammered by 267 runs at the WACA 5.4 overs into the fourth day.
Fears of a whitewash are already very real, with Australia captain Steve Smith, part of the team that thrashed England 5-0 in the 2013-14 Ashes series, suggesting a repeat is now a live possibility.
“It’s always tough coming back from 2-0 down, especially when you’re away from home,” he said. “You can only be one or two bad sessions away from losing the series. I think that can play on people’s minds.”
Trevor Bayliss, England’s coach, has already confirmed he will stick with the same XI who lost in Adelaide for the third Test.
“I can’t see any reason to change the team,” he said.
There will be no change in the batting order either, with Jonny Bairstow remaining at No.7 and Moeen Ali at six despite his disappointing start to the series with both bat and ball.
England have a week before what now amounts to a must-win game.
The next few days will be spent de-cluttering their heads away from cricket, with Bayliss giving ten of the 11 players defeated in Adelaide the weekend off.
“We have to be careful not to over-analyse, and make sure the guys are not just physically rested but mentally, too,” he said.
Moeen, who missed two of the three pre-Ashes warm-up matches with a side strain, is the exception after he was made captain for England’s two-day tour match against a Cricket Australia XI starting on Saturday.
This fixture, played at Perth’s Richardson Park, is unlikely to offer any great benefit to England.
But it gives Moeen the honour of captaining his country for the first time and will, hopefully, help him rediscover his mojo after a subdued start to the tour.
It also offers the five squad members who did not feature in the second Test – Gary Ballance, Ben Foakes, Jake Ball, Mason Crane and Tom Curran – some time on the field and a chance to press their selection claims.
Six players from England Lions, who are in Perth now, have also been called into the 12-man squad for the tour match.
Mark Wood is perhaps the headline name from those, the Durham fast bowler finally back from the heel injury that ruined the second half of his last English summer.
Wood took two wickets and scored 51 from 52 balls during the Lions’ 50-over match against a Western Australia XI in Perth on Wednesday.
Could he be called into the Ashes squad ahead of the third Test? That remains unlikely but he at least has a big opportunity to push his case.
Two other players with Test experience in Ben Duckett and Keaton Jennings are among the other Lions to have been drafted in.
They are joined by Essex batsman Dan Lawrence, Somerset spinner Jack Leach, and Liam Livingstone, the Lancashire allrounder.
The real issue of preparing to turn the tide of history at the WACA will start for the rest of England’s players at training on Monday.
Belief that they can push Australia will be key.
The talk is that the famed WACA pitch is not what it once was, with the final Ashes Test at the venue before the move to Perth’s new stadium expected to be played on a flat and sluggish surface similar to the one England encountered in their opening warm-up match here six weeks ago.
Whatever the conditions – and searing Perth heat is another factor that makes the WACA such an inhospitable place for visiting teams – Bayliss knows this England team need to address a run of form that has seen them win only one of their past 10 overseas Tests.
He said: “The disappointing thing about not just here but in India [last winter] and past series, is we have competed for a number of Test matches for two or three days.
“Somewhere along the line we will win a game and it will mean so much to them. It will make them believe they are good enough.
“When that happens, we will be able to go on and get many more wins in those situations. Somewhere along the line we have to win one of them to get it started.”
That will have to come next week if England are to realistically retain any hope of holding onto the Ashes.