MARCUS TRESCOTHICK
Cricket Don’t write off England’s hopes of hitting back in Ashes
DON’T despair England fans. I only have to recall my involvement in the 2005 Ashes series to know that losing the First Test is not the end of the world.
Yes, it was disappointing to be beaten at Edgbaston, particularly by a margin of 251 runs having had the Aussies 122-8 in their first innings, but all is not lost with four matches still to play.
Fourteen years ago I was on the wrong end of a pasting in the opening Test of the series, which saw England lose by 239 runs at Lord’s after being bowled out for less than 200 in both innings.
At the time we were shell-shocked. But no one panicked and when we fielded the same team for the Second Test at Edgbaston we won by two runs in the first of the dramatic close finishes that so thrilled the nation.
When England start preparing for Lord’s this time around there needs to be the same belief in the players as coach Duncan Fletcher showed in us because I believe the selectors got it right with the personnel.
We have to make one change, with Jimmy Anderson ruled out by the calf injury which meant he only bowled four overs. But Jofra Archer appeared to prove his fitness by taking six wickets and scoring a century for a Sussex second XI on Tuesday.
While losing a player of Jimmy’s calibre is clearly a blow and had a big influence on how the game at Edgbaston unfolded, Jofra will add pace to our attack on what I hope will be a pitch that offers our seam bowlers more assistance over a longer period.
The one used in the opening Test flattened out pretty quickly, while offering increasing turn, and if anything suited the Aussie seamers like Pat Cummins, who hit the pitch hard, more than Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes.
People have questioned the selection of Moeen Ali, but as far as I am concerned he went into the series as our number one spinner. Unfortunately, he did not bowl well enough and I would definitely have my Somerset team-mate Jack Leach in the squad for Lord’s. I would then leave final selection between Moeen and Jack until Wednesday, when the match begins, having made a close assessment of the pitch.
One factor in Jack’s favour is that Steve Smith, for all his powers, has not been as successful against left-arm spin as other types of bowling.
The Australia captain looked from a
different planet at Edgbaston, not least because he has the patience, as well as the ability, to bat long on that type of pitch.
We need more lateral movement for our pace attack to trouble him and it would be nice to see him being tested by Archer’s added nip on what I imagine will be a fairly green Lord’s wicket.
A number of pundits have put down our defeat to the emphasis England placed on white-ball cricket in the couple of years leading up to our World Cup success. I think there is something in that and we need to find a way of redressing the balance. But it is not as simple as saying we have too many naturally attacking batsmen.
Jason Roy has inevitably come in for criticism over the manner of his second innings dismissal, giving Nathan Lyon the charge at a time when we needed to conserve wickets and salvage a draw.
Perhaps he might have given more thought to the match situation. But I know from experience that you cannot afford to just defend against a quality spin bowler when the ball is turning as much as it was on the last day.
Letting him fall into a rhythm and consistently hit a good length, with no fear of being attacked, is asking for trouble. Jason was trying to disrupt that rhythm and I am not going to criticise him too much because there was method in what appeared to many a moment of madness.
Another criticism has been that Anderson shouldn’t have played, having already been under treatment for a calf problem. But in such cases the selectors can only take the advice of the medical team, who would have tested Jimmy’s fitness as stringently as possible.
For his calf to give out so early was surprising and a break for Australia. But, if you think back to 2005 again, we reaped the benefit when Glenn McGrath injured himself stepping on the ball in the warm-up ahead of the Second Test.
That followed a week between the two games in which we had a full debrief on what had gone wrong in the First Test. By the time we got to Edgbaston our attitude was that we still felt we could impose the style of cricket we had intended to play, which was to be aggressive with bat and ball.
The rest, as they say, is history. When I am lucky enough to join the England camp again on Monday as an observer, I expect a similarly positive atmosphere because we are not out of this series by any means.