Batting fears grow as England lose three for one
Lower-order form a worry as Gabba looms Moeen falls for five but picks up two wickets
Given that only two of England’s five specialist batsmen have reached 70 in a Test, the vulnerability of their lower order must be their biggest concern ahead of the first Test at the Gabba on Thursday. Nothing so fills an Australian crowd with excitement, happiness and contempt like a Pommy collapse.
Even against the modest bowling of the Cricket Australia XI, whose leading wicket-taker, Matt Short, had the grand total of one first-class wicket going into this practice game, England contrived to lose three wickets for one run. If England’s lower order do not buck up, Mitchell Starc with his yorkers is liable to add to his brace of hat-tricks this nascent season.
Moeen Ali missed the first two warm-ups with a side strain. In this third and final one, he scored five – and those came off an off-spinner, Short, and a leg-spinner, without him facing a single ball of pace.
More than anyone else in England’s Test XI, Moeen could have done with another game before the Ashes – a proper four-dayer against a state side, if Cricket Australia would allow such a thing – after playing inside a straight one angled in by Short from round the wicket.
England’s likely No 9 at the Gabba, Craig Overton, has amassed five fewer runs than Moeen on this tour because his scores have been 0, 0 and 0. Overton turned an offbreak to short leg to be dismissed first ball. He has made runs in Australia, in an Under-19 World Cup, but his aggregate on this tour means that Jake Ball still has a chance for the opening Test. Ball, England’s best pace bowler on this tour apart from James Anderson, is scheduled to bowl 15 overs in the nets, in three spells, before the party fly south to Brisbane tomorrow to prove he has recovered from his right ankle sprain.
“Trevor [Bayliss] has always had Bally earmarked for this series,” said Bayliss’s assistant coach, Paul Farbrace. “He thought that Australia would be the place for him, with the extra bounce, with him being tall and the pace he bowls, those awkward lengths where he brings both edges of the bat into play.
“I would have liked to have seen more people get runs and more people get bigger scores,” Farbrace added. “If we’re honest, it was a bit of a mixed day. We feel we’d had two really good previous days, and perhaps we just slipped a fraction from the standards we would have expected. There were one or two soft dismissals and dismissals we could have done without. The lads have worked hard – they’re not machines, they make mistakes – so, perhaps it’s a good timely reminder that we have to be on our game all the time.”
Farbrace would have had Jonny Bairstow in mind, as he shovelled a low full-toss to mid-on, but England’s wicketkeeper made good runs in Adelaide.
The last-wicket stand of 58 by Chris Woakes and Mason Crane was, therefore, most welcome, as it took England’s total above 500 and suggested resilience.
Crane, who has been described as “feisty” by Bayliss, got in behind the ball, unlike some England spin-