At the time of writing, England had confirmed all but one of their starting XI for the fourth Test at Trent Bridge and news was yet to filter out of the Australian camp.
With the Test match starting on Thursday, there is one important issue to discuss. It concerns the Adams of the Ashes.
Both Yorkshireman Lyth and West Australian Voges have looked lost in the three Tests played out to date, with neither threatening to take hold of the series.
The former has been loose outside off and the latter has been indecisive in the same corridor. The pair have left their prolific domestic form in the kitbag and taken on the role of naïve novice which, in international terms, they both are.
It would be unfair to be harsh, as the batting of the teams, in the main, has been skittish, aggressive, fragile and never hinting at permanence, with few able to display the resolve necessary to compile a sizeable contribution.
The efforts of Steve Smith, Chris Rogers and Alastair Cook at Lord’s stand out like a beacon among the wreckage of the majority who have approached their task with the motto of ‘here for a good time, not a long one’.
Even David Warner’s fine rearguard action in the second innings at Edgbaston was played with a hyperactive scoring rate that laughed in the face of the situation.
Warner might not be the best example, as he tends to rattle along most of the time, but he has a method that is not for changing. A few of his colleagues and most of the home side have decided there is little point in utilising the five days available.
But back to the Adams.
I can’t think of one dissenting voice when the pair lined up for the national anthems in Cardiff.
Lyth, with Jonathan Trott’s Test career a thing of the past, was justifiably the next in line to open alongside Cook. Voges, with a Test century on debut neatly inscribed on the CV and a plethora of experience in English conditions, was the right man at the right time. Chris Rogers 2.0 if you like.
On the evidence presented so far, it is one thing churning out runs in the County Championship and Sheffield Shield, another entirely when the eyes of the cricketing world have you in their collective sights.
The Lyth of Yorkshire – organised, watchful, selectively aggressive – is not the one on show. Instead, there is a model who can’t help himself when the carrot is teasingly dangled, and the end result has been a keeper and slip cordon licking their lips.
The way the Australians in Birmingham simply hung the ball out, knowing resistance would be brief, told you all you need to know. Until this is rectified it is difficult to see how a lengthy stay in the side will be accomplished.
As for his namesake, he also looks like a slip catch waiting to happen, but not because he’s going after the ball. Every batsman has been there: the feet aren’t moving quite as you’d like, the situation’s tense, the ball’s doing a bit, you’ve little confidence in terms of runs under the belt, and the outcome is a tentative poke at the ball rather than anything decisive.
There are a couple of differences between the two: England won the last Test, making the continued selection of Lyth less of an issue, and he is not a 35-year-old who, realistically, would only be at this level for a short space of time.
Add to the melting pot the fact Voges, unlike his faltering middle-order colleagues, isn’t captain and doesn’t bowl and you can see how his position becomes that much more flaky.
It could well be Lyth and Voges are a couple more failures from a trip back to domesticity, or the realisation of impending doom may force them to release the shackles and show why they were picked in the first place.
So while the gathering in Nottingham represents a contest of significant magnitude for the two teams, there is a subplot of no less importance concerning England’s No. 2 and Australia’s No. 5.
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