PILE ON THE PAIN
Root calls Smith’s absence a ‘huge hole’ and paceman Jofra is ready to . . .
Joe Root has urged england to capitalise on the absence of Steve Smith from Australia’s side in today’s crucial third Ashes test and admitted he can’t wait to throw the ball to Jofra Archer.
Smith was ruled out of the game on tuesday following the blow he took to the neck from Archer at Lord’s at the weekend, leaving england hopeful they can square the series without him around to prop up Australia’s shaky batting.
‘It is a huge hole,’ Root told the BBC. ‘Look at the runs he scored throughout the three innings he took part in. If you take 92 out of the last game, it is a huge difference, and similarly in the first game: you take 280 runs out of that and it looks completely different and we could be sat here 2-0 up.
‘He is a big focal point of their team and
For his next trick, Jofra Archer must somehow follow a World Cup-winning super over and a mind-boggling Test debut against Australia at Lord’s by firing England back into the Ashes.
No pressure, then, for this remarkable newcomer to international cricket who will be the centre of attention again at Headingley in a third Test England cannot afford to lose if they are to get their hands on that precious urn.
Not that Archer seems to be feeling under any pressure. His priority on arriving in Leeds was working out how to play his beloved Fortnite video game in his hotel room, and yesterday he seemed not to have a care in the world during practice.
There was Archer bowling left-arm spin, as he is wont to do in the nets, before showing the footballing prowess he apparently displays back in Brighton with his friends in a team imaginatively called Egg Fried reus. All with a smile on his face, too.
But it will be with more extremely fast, skilful and, at times, brutal fast bowling that England hope Archer will today make another dramatic impact against an Australia team without Steve Smith, who earned them their 1-0 lead at Edgbaston. Certainly Joe
root is as excited as anyone to discover what else arguably the best thing to happen to world cricket in years has up his sleeve, as the captain attempts to build on the momentum from Lord’s.
‘He’s one of those guys who just seems born for these occasions,’ said the England skipper of Archer ahead of surely the pivotal Test of this Ashes. ‘once you’ve got a super over in a World Cup final in your back pocket, it makes everything a bit easier.
‘He’s just a relaxed character who is unfazed by anything and he loved everything about last week. I could see that in conversations with him.
‘I’d say, “Give it everything for three overs and we’ll have a look”, and then two overs in he wanted four more. Jofra wants to get out there and make things happen and that’s very impressive in a young man.’
And it is what Archer can do for the rest of the attack that is particularly exciting for an England team who have finally found a genuinely quick and hostile bowler who can propel them to a successful future, even if they did have to go to Barbados to find him. ‘I’m intrigued to see how he kicks on from that start and how the rest of the guys work around him,’ added root.
‘They will come into the game even more because of the way he’s bowling. No one has mentioned Stuart Broad has 10 wickets already in this series, which is a very impressive start by him.
‘Stuart is enjoying the fact Jofra is getting a lot of the headlines and he can just go about his business and do his thing. It’s important you dovetail as a bowling group and we did that exceptionally well last week.’
Now the question is whether the Ashes tide really has turned and England can carry on where they left off at Lord’s by earning a Specsavers series-levelling victory that was only denied them in the second Test by the rain that wiped out virtually two full days’ play.
They will never have a better chance. The Archer- induced absence of Smith, for this game at least, robs Australia of the only batsman on either side who has looked capable of making matchdefining hundreds in this series.
And the elephant in Australia’s room remains that they are competing with virtually 10 players, because the captain who was brought in to rid them of the toxic culture that cost Smith so dearly,
Tim Paine, is not worth his place in the side. Yet if England really are to win here on what looks a good Headingley pitch, there must be more solidity in a batting line-up that is still worryingly fragile and over-reliant on the lower middleorder to bail them out.
In a way, the call-up of the hugely promising ollie Pope as cover for Jason roy proves the need for more specialist top-order players. Pope played two Tests against India last summer at No 4 before it became clear he would be far better suited to six.
Now, with an unbeaten double century for Surrey this week at No 5, Pope would bat at four again today if roy was ruled out by his final concussion test having been struck in the nets during practice on Tuesday. Joe Denly would move up to open.
The chances are roy will be fit to play, but his position in the order is clearly causing much debate within the hierarchy as Trevor Bayliss has made it clear he believes the destructive batsman should be at four.
The problem there is that the position is occupied by Denly, who has been championed by national selector Ed Smith.
‘I obviously think Jason should open, otherwise he’d be at four,’ insisted root. ‘There’s a lot of talk about our batting order because of the options we have, but at no stage are we trying to reinvent the wheel. We’ve got to play to our
strengths and be flexible over the course of the series, but I feel Jason can have a really big impact at the start of an innings. It may not have happened yet, but we fully expect him to go out and do that.’
It can only be hoped England are not gambling with the Ashes by giving Roy one last chance here to impress as an opener, against Bayliss’s better judgment, but otherwise they are in good shape.
Win, and with Jimmy Anderson likely to be fit for the fourth Test at old Trafford, they would be set for a come-from-behind Ashes victory. Lose and they must contemplate their first defeat on home soil by the old enemy since the bad old days of 2001. The stakes are high but in Archer they have a gem who can take it all in his stride.