Captains who play it safe can pay price

ALoT of focus will be on the captaincy decisions in this Test and rightly so because Joe root inserting Australia and Steve Smith shunning the follow-on were big calls.

one of the pair will be going to the WACA under pressure for a call they made in Adelaide.

However, the crux of the matter is that england enjoyed the better conditions yet fluffed their lines and found themselves chasing the game.

Usually when you make a messup at the toss it is because you have made things easier for the opposition. Yet in this instance england had the best periods to bat — the sun was out, it was early afternoon and inexplicably they found themselves seven wickets down for 142.

As a team — until Chris Woakes and Craig overton came together — they seemed far too eager to put bat to ball and paid for it. Whether that at is because they were e behind in the game, and in the series, only they know but there has to be more resilience.

in fact, england only came to life when they y bowled for a second time, me, in conditions that root gambled on getting on theth first fi t day when he made his call at the toss. As an england captain in Australia you are keen for any sideways movement and when they bowled under the floodlights on the third evening his attack looked exceptional.

Those were the ideal conditions to bowl in and that is why i disagree with Smith’s decision.

Not enforcing the follow-on is a modern trend, and Australian captains are all reminded of Steve Waugh and the great india turnaround in Calcutta 17 years ago. But this is not a pitch that is going to drastically deteriorate. This is Adelaide under lights.

Conventional wisdom is to have another bat. But this is not conventional. This is a new phenomenon called day- night Test cricket. Sure, Smith had to weigh up the pros and cons. But the pros were huge: he had a brand new ball to be used at the perfect time under the lights. very rarely do you get the two coming together so perfectly. Not even when he declared on day two did he get that. it was still twilight then before the ball really started to zip around.

Also, he had the opposition out on their feet and you can imagine what would have been going through the minds of Alastair Cook, Mark Stoneman, James vince and root. The last thing they would have wanted was to bat again.

Among the cons is that Smith has a fragile seam attack and this showed how worried he is about asking them to go out there session sion after afte session. He took the safer option because he wanted wa his three seamers er to have a rest. of course, with such a huge lead he would have considered it just as likely for Australia to win the game this way round. Nathan Lyon L will be bowling against ag england’s six left-hhanders and his pace bowler bowlers are fresh. But it highlighted that when the ball moves around, this Australia side are most vulnerable. Think of their results on their last Ashes tour at edgbaston and Trent Bridge in 2015 and in Sri Lanka, india and Bangladesh since when seam, swing or spin was introduced.

Unfortunately for england, though, 70 per cent of the cricket that is played in Australia is when the ball is not moving around because of the ball they use and the surfaces they play on.

So for them, instead of looking at captaincy calls, they ought to look at how they bowled on the first morning, what they are going to do when it is not moving lavishly, and how they batted before Woakes and overton came together.