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The second Ashes Test starts at the redeveloped Adelaide Oval today, and a bullish Australian side come into this match on a massive high after their incredible performance in the first Test in Brisbane.
While Australian cricket fans certainly hoped for a memorable start to this Ashes series, I would be surprised if friends and family, or even Cricket Australia powerbrokers, would have envisaged a 381-run thumping of the motherland first up.
If nothing else, it should certainly help ticket sales for the later days in Melbourne and Sydney, assuming of course the series is still alive then!
Australia have unsurprisingly named an unchanged XI for the second Test, meaning George Bailey holds his place, and James Faulkner again features on the team sheet but in all likelihood will jet back to Hobart to prepare for the Shield match starting on Sunday.
Bailey holding his spot, and Faulkner not being required can only mean Shane Watson really is fit to bowl his full complement of overs, and they will almost certainly be needed on the new drop-in wicket that has yielded more than 2500 Shield runs in the past month.
England captain Alistair Cook was keeping his selection cards close his chest at his pre-match press conference yesterday, only saying that Monty Panesar was still in the frame, and that his team hadn’t been finalised.
Australia expect prolific uncapped left-hander Gary Ballance to come into the England side for Jonathan Trott, and for Tim Bresnan to play at the expense of the underwhelming Chris Tremlett.
If Panesar is genuinely in the frame, you would have to assume allrounder Ryan Stokes would play instead of Ballance.
All eyes will be on the English batting order, too, to see if they do promote Joe Root to number as Roar expert Glenn Mitchell and I predicted in the Adelaide Test preview edition of the Cheap Seats podcast, or if our lesser-learned bowling colleague, Ryan O’Connell, is right with his suggestion of moving the classical technique of Ian Bell.
What will either team do after winning the toss?
It’s Adelaide. They’ll bat.
What each team will want from the first session
Both will be aiming for similar goals. No wickets down at drinks, for the team batting first, and somewhere near a hundred on the historic Adelaide Oval scoreboard by lunch for no more than two wickets.
That would be a decent platform to set up a big first innings.
The team bowling first will want a repeat of 2010/2011, where England rocked the Australian top order, taking 3/2 from the first 13 balls of the match.
Australia was 3/94 at lunch, and would be 4/96 when Shane Watson was sent packing nine balls after the break.
Early wickets will be the key, and might provide one of the few avenues of achieving a result in this match.
Once again, the great Suneer Chowdhary has all the live in-play action covered from 11.00am AEDT, but while he warms up his super-blogging fingers, we’ll discuss all the implications for the match right here leading into the start of play.
Fire in your questions, and I’ll see you here for the build-up from 10.00am AEDT.
Hours of play
Morning session: 10:30am to 12:30pm local time (11:00am to 1:00pm AEDT).
Afternoon session: 1:10pm to 3:10pm (1:40pm to 3:40pm AEDT).
Evening session: 3:30pm to 5:30pm (4:00pm to 6:00pm AEDT).