‘WEATHER WILL MAKE US PUSH HARD FOR WIN’
SKIPPER STOKES’ RALLYING CRY AHEAD OF VITAL TEST
ENGLAND were this morning beginning their quest to level the Ashes here in Manchester, with captain Ben Stokes promising his side are ready to accelerate the game in a bid to stop bad weather ripping away the Urn.
Having gone 2-0 down following defeats at Edgbaston and Lord’s, England halved the deficit with victory at Headingley this month and, after a nine-day pause between matches, are now chasing the victory here that would tee-up a series decider at the Kia Oval next week.
Play was beginning on time today, but substantial amounts of rain are forecast for across the course of the Test match, with the forecast for days four and five looking particularly bleak. England, however, have to force a result to keep their hopes of regaining the Urn alive, with a draw enough to see Australia hold onto the Ashes.
Stokes won the toss for the fourth consecutive match and put the tourists in to bat under grey skies, the England skipper now attempting to buck a remarkable trend: no side electing to bowl first having ever gone on to win a Test on this ground.
“It would be a nice time to be the first team to do that,” Stokes laughed. “We have spoken about the weather, but I think today is not too bad — and if the Test goes deeper, we’ll come up with some plans then. The way we go about
it naturally does that. If the game gets to the point where we push things on, we’ll be very capable to do that.”
After once again calling incorrectly, Australia skipper Pat Cummins joked: “I won’t be going to the casino! We would have had a bowl, but it’s not a bad toss to lose, it looks like a good wicket.”
Despite their 2-1 lead, however, Cummins insisted that his side would not be playing for a draw, with the tourists spurred on by the prospect of a first outright series win on English soil since 2001, having been pegged back to 2-2 in 2019’s Fifth Test at The Oval.
“Five days is a long time to play a Test match,” Cummins added. “It can be dangerous [looking to draw]. I know there’s weather around, but we are absolutely playing to win and to win the series.”
Australia broke with their habit of the series by naming their team a day out from the toss, making two changes to their side from the Third Test, as Josh Hazlewood and Cameron Green both return to the line-up.
Scott Boland misses out in a like-forlike switch for the former, but with allrounder Mitchell Marsh having scored a hundred in Leeds, Green’s return from a hamstring injury has seen the tourists drop Todd Murphy, thus going into a Test match without a specialist spinner for the first time in more than a decade.
England, meanwhile, have made only one change to their victorious XI from Headingley, with James Anderson back into the side on his home ground in place of Ollie Robinson.
“The break last week has done him the world of good,” Stokes said of Anderson. “He’s been an unbelievable performer for England over many years. Even when he’s not performing at what he’d say is his best, he still offers so much to us as a team.”