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Can David Warner become the world’s most valuable batsman? How can England compete without Stuart Broad? Have the umpires stopped watching for no-balls?
These questions were posed by another dominant day of cricket for Australia at the WACA which saw them roll England for just 251 before building a massive lead.
Can David Warner become the best opening batsman in Test cricket?
Yes he can. But the obvious hurdle he must scale is rectifying the disparity in his performances at home and away.
On Aussie decks, Warner is a beast.
He intimidates and mauls his opponents with assured, belligerent strokeplay.
In 15 Tests down under, he has piled up 1354 runs at 59, including five centuries.
On tour he has been a poor imitation of the batsmen who thrills Aussie crowds.
His play has lacked authority and his desire to force the pace been exposed on the slower decks in England, India and the West Indies.
Warner’s ten away matches against those nations have seen him average just 25, with no hundreds.
In those Tests he lacked the maturity to shackle his attacking instincts in conditions which often did not suit his forceful style of play.
It is one thing to hit through the line on a WACA deck offering true pace and bounce.
It is another thing all together to replicate that on a slow, uneven Indian pitch.
Warner’s start to his Test career compares favourably with English skipper Alastair Cook, who is neck and neck with South African captain Graeme Smith as the best opener in Test cricket.
Cook averaged 44 after his initial 25 Tests, whereas Warner is averaging 43 after the same number of matches.
They could scarcely be more different in their approaches to Test batting.
Warner’s capacity for vaporising attacks from the first over is his greatest weapon.
But he will have to incorporate some of the patience and circumspection boasted by the Englishman if he is to challenge Cook and Smith as the best opener in the game.
Warner has embarrassed his counterpart so far in this series, registering 457 runs at 91, compared to Cook’s 154 runs at 31.
He has also scored at almost twice the pace – a strike rate of 76 as opposed to Cook’s mark of 39.
When Warner makes runs he sets his opponents back on their heels while granting his own side invaluable impetus.
England would dearly love a similarly dynamic player in their top three, which is currently one-paced and liable to get bogged down.
Warner entered this series under extraordinary pressure after a series of off-field indiscretions intersected with sub-par performances on the Test tours of India and England.
His fiercest challenge awaits in February, when he will encounter the world’s most incisive pace attack on the tour of South Africa.
Should he succeed there he may well be primed to take the next step and match Cook and Smith.
How can England possibly compete without Stuart Broad?
It was a savage blow, both literally and metaphorically.
A snaking Mitchell Johnson Yorker thudded into the foot of Stuart Broad, trapping him LBW and forcing him to limp from the ground.
The impact was so severe that, even with the series still on the line, England’s leading bowler did not take the field today.
For a time he was seen delivering hobbled, half-paced offerings in the WACA nets under the concerned eyes of bowling coach David Saker.
Later cameras caught him leaving the ground to get x-rays on his battered foot.
By the end of today’s play there was no news on whether Broad would be able to take any further part in this match.
Given that the Ashes will almost certainly be handed over in the next two days, will England risk playing Broad on Boxing Day if he is not 100 percent fit?
If he does not play at the MCG it is hard to imagine how, barring the intervention of rain, England can avoid entering the final Test at the SCG 4-0 down.
Broad has been England’s most influential player in this series by a long, long way.
The lanky quick has asked questions of all the Australian batsmen en route to snaring 14 wickets at 25.
The remaining English bowlers playing here, James Anderson, Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan and Ben Stokes, have a combined average of more than 60 over the past three Tests.
As it stands England are labouring to contain the Australian batting line-up, four members of which – David Warner, Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin and Steve Smith – have scored tons this series.
If they are without their only in-form bowler, things could get even uglier for England over the next few weeks.
How many no-balls are being missed by the umpires?
It has become a nonsense.
Almost every time a bowler makes a breakthrough the departing batsman has to hover near the edge of the pitch while the central umpire asks to check for a no-ball.
The third umpire consults a television replay before, in the overwhelming majority of cases, he informs his on-field colleague that it was a legal delivery.
When the umpires were first offered this option a few years back they used it judiciously.
It seemed they only reviewed potential no-balls when the exact position of the bowler’s front foot was difficult to be certain of.
More often than not the replays showed it really had been a lineball decision and the umpire had been right to request a review.
Now it has become apparent that some umpires no longer watch the bowler’s front foot every ball.
Several of the post-dismissal no-ball reviews this series have shown the bowler’s foot to be so far from illegal territory that the umpire could not possibly have been paying attention.
Have umpires stopped looking for no-balls because of the safety net provided by the reviews?
Or were they never watching the crease closely and it’s only now being exposed as a result of technology?
Most pertinently, how is this situation being tolerated by the ICC?
If umpires are not closely monitoring the crease, they could well be missing dozens of no-balls in general play each Test.
While batsmen are being protected by the reviews, bowlers are suffering to an extent.
When a paceman is no-balled they will often ask the umpire how far over the line they were and then make an adjustment to their run up to avoid a subsequent offence.
If the umpire is not regularly examining their delivery stride the bowler may falsely assume they are bowling legal deliveries.
This assumption could then be shattered when, finally, their stride is analysed following a wicket.
It is hard to have sympathy for bowlers who over step.
But they deserve to be guided by the umpires before it is too late and they have been stripped of a wicket.