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Our Aussie bowlers should be under no illusions: the English top order batsmen they’re about to bowl at are going to be harder to remove than an overly enthusiastic houseguest on a school night.
With Trott, Cook, Bell, and the young, unbearded and largely unknown Joe Root, to go along with Matt Prior and a stiff tail of Bresnan, Broad, Swann and Anderson, our bowlers are going to have to work double-time and then some to take 10 wickets. Twice.
Cook and Trott revel in spending inordinate amounts of time at the crease and accumulating runs in the most irritating and demoralising way possible.
Trott makes a point of only scoring on one side of the wicket, while Cook will happily leave balls outside his off-stump until the bowlers go insane with boredom. He’s like a reverse Glenn McGrath.
They’re sort of like Ed Cowan, except these guys don’t just take the shine off the first new ball, but the second one as well.
Joe Root could very well be the next big thing, but the Aussies should target him as vulnerable.
He stands up very tall when he takes guard, possibly leaving his footwork vulnerable against late movement from Pattinson and Starc. I think the slips and keeper will feel they’re very much in the game when he faces up, and he could be the only weak link in the English order.
Pietersen and Bell are both quality players who have done it against Australia before. These two will be constant thorns in the Australian side, and you would fancy Pietersen to ton up at least once in his home series.
The less said on our end about Matt Prior the better, as he only seems to be improving with age.
The tail, too, should provide a bit of resistance for the Poms. Bresnan and Broad’s batting is solid, and Swann can tally late runs quickly with agricultural gusto.
Anderson has clearly worked on his game and has gone from being a proper rabbit to a scared-looking but brave ‘French’ cricketer, and will more than likely have bowlers steaming from the ears before they finally see the back of him.
It’s going to be no walk in the park for our fancied bowling attack.
There has always been confidence that we have the cattle to get the job done, but the question of selection and suitability for the surfaces we are going to play on is a real humdinger.
Realistically there are five fast-bowling candidates that must squeeze into three spots.
James Pattinson is a must, obviously. As Cam Rose wrote the other day, he’s the complete package, and not in a Matt Shirvington way.
He’s an enforcer, a wicket taker, and a sure thing for the first Ashes Test.
Mitchell Starc seems the second most likely to be picked, as he provides a point of difference.
He has the ability to take bags of wickets in short spaces, but also can go for a barrel of runs when he is slightly off. There is a common cause for both of these phenomena: his length.
On a traditional ‘good length’ scale, Starc bowls ever so slightly too full.
When the conditions are right and he’s got his seam position in order, this means late movement, stumps flying everywhere and plenty of LBW shouts.
When there’s no swing, and he fails to adjust his length back 15 centimetres, it means he’s bowling fruit for folks with good cover drives.
England should suit Starc. He’s had time to acclimatise to the famed Duke ball and should also be familiar with the extra movement the English atmosphere have afforded him. By the time of the first Test he should be rolling down lethal stuff more often than chaff.
Starc’s a risk, but looking at the stoic English order it seems like he’s a risk the Aussie selectors are going to have to take.
Now comes the real decision: Do we choose the stalwart Siddle, who has done absolutely nothing, but his best every time he dons the whites?
Or is it Bird, a young guy who not only looks to be a great foil for his young brethren, but also looks to suit English conditions to a T?
Or finally is it Harris, a guy who takes wickets every time he plays, but just doesn’t play often enough to cement a spot.
Siddle is a real quandary. He is the most loyal bowling servant Australia has had for the last five years, yet doesn’t have the obvious weapons to command a spot.
He’s not quite quick enough to be a bonafide enforcer, and doesn’t move it laterally with any real regularity.
You know he’s never going to let you down, but whether he takes enough wickets to hold his spot is the real issue.
Do the Aussies pit a reliable but possibly flawed bowler against a very strong English order, when there’s danger of him being serviceable but not incisive?
Jackson Bird, who we’ve seen can move the ball off the straight, has a heap of potential but is untested. Tests in Australia against a demoralised Sri Lanka don’t win you too many credits when it comes to Ashes selection.
His good form in the tour matches helps, as does the fact that he’s not dissimilar to the formerly-successful England ‘quick’ Matthew Hoggard, but is 10km/h faster.
So do we pick a Hoggard 2.0, a guy who can consistently bend it away from righties at reasonable pace? Or do we go with the lethal but breakdown-prone Ryan Harris?
At his best, Harris tears into teams’ top orders with quick, bouncy, cutting deliveries supplemented with regular out-swing. At his worst he’s not on the paddock due to another injury, the string of which has become the real story of this extremely talented bowler’s career.
The reason he may have to be selected, to bring it back to where all of this started, is that we need wickets.
These English bats will happily be there all day and the next unless they’re dislodged, and the Aussies need to pick the three quicks, to go along with Nathan Lyon and Shane Watson, that are likely to get this done.
Pattinson must be in. Starc, with his omission from the Worcestershire tour match and reasonable form against Somerset, to go along with his ability to take big hauls, looks to be a confirmed starter as well.
The third one is a real trilemma.
Siddle’s the best batsmen of them; Harris the most likely to take wickets; while Bird is the most likely to take wickets without breaking down.
Either of the three would be a good choice, but we need them to be better than good if we’re to take 20 wickets.
Follow Paddy on Twitter @WarmingthePine
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