The Ashes are alive: Beware a wounded England

Yes, but all other variables never are constant!

It will take a lot more than the wounded England to turn things around - for starters Eng want a tailor made pitch - seam, swing but slow, no spin! Then they want the balls which worked against India - the batch which they thought they will use against Aus has apparently gone soft. Then, of course, they have to win the tosses. If you track their success and failures for the past 3 years - you would find this to be the theme! They aren't going to back players like Foakes - isn't flashy enough for their style and he will be replacing one of the other 2 keepers. Bairstow technical issues which work in short form are a liability in tests. Burns might have utilized all his luck in that one inning! Root at 3 - don't think he will survive there. He was pretty ordinary opening the bat and yes he has matured a lot since but in the fab 4, his game is way too flashy for it to bring success on bowler-friendly pitches. Stokes and Woakes - the standouts. Aus just have to be patient and get Hazlewood into rhythm and replace Siddle?

81 shouldn't. we won a low-score lottery in the first test and were under pressure in the second but drew due to the weather, primarily. eventually the team disharmony, inexperience in batting and bowling, injuries to quicks, and lack of a leggie, and some english arse. the bottom fell out.

geometry, assuming all other variables held constant

England's batting is weak only Root averages over 35. We have 4 of our top 6 averaging over 40.

Wouldn’t surprise me either. Root would probably bowl a fair bit in that case.

We are more likely to beat a wounded England than a full strength England. We just played a wounded England (Anderson) and flogged them

I'd back Bairstow to come good with the bat at 4, last Ashes made a top hundred WACA with Malan who I'm surprised got turfed. Root can't do it all. Bring in Foakes to wk for Denly. Foakes is top keeper and good batsman. Archer and Leach for Anderson and Ali.

In the first innings where Broad did well, the commentators kept talking about how it seems like the captain and coaching staff had got in his ear to get the ball fuller and he was doing that there and found a lot of success with it. It's a standard comment from the commentators when a length ball beats the bat, "if that was a yard fuller that takes the edge". Not sure it's as simple as that, and of course, it's an easy statement to make because nobody can actually prove that you are wrong!!!

Very wise advice about not getting too cocky over one win. 1981 also sticks in the memory for those of us old enough as an even more painful memory of an England turn around. We should also be aware of the statistical likelihood that Steve Smith won’t have such a great game. Trevor Bayliss pointed out that Smith played and missed 17 times across the two innings - i.e. even the great innings can have an element of luck and don’t be surprised if next time one ball has his number early and gets the edge. Including Foakes, Curran and Woakes sound like good ideas. But while I wouldn’t want to give the England selectors too many useful tips, I would have thought five bowlers plus Stokes and batting Foakes at six means the batting is a bit weak? I guess the answer to that might be that keeping Bairstow in as a specialist batsman might not be that much of an advantage over Curran, for example, given Bairstow doesn’t have a convincing Test record and did poorly against India on seaming decks last year. And there don’t seem to be any other obvious alternatives. But I doubt they’ll bat Foakes at six.

I wasn't really sold on Head as a test player, but the longer he goes, the more I think he could make himself into a good test player. On the opening batsman side, I really feel like either Bancroft or Harris could well become quality test openers, but they need to pick one and stick with them for a bit to give them time to grow into test cricket, not discard after a few failures. So since they've selected Bancroft now, I think they really need to try and stick with him for a bit. Give him at least the next 10-15 tests to try to settle into the role. Unless he just does absolutely hopeless and almost never reaches double figures. As long as there is still some promise there, give him time. I'd say the same about Harris if they'd picked him for the first test. In both cases they are more a long term project.

Ronans team is certainly the team I would pick for Englands best chance. I expect them to win at Lords if Smith can't deliver Australia another 250 plus runs. While Siddle, Pattinson are fine bowlers I don't think they're the best we've got. We can't keep on relying on Cummins and Lyon to get 90% of the wickets. I'm wrapt that Head got two scores and Wade got a ton so what we need is Australia making 400 against a full English attack. Unfortunately Ali has been awful and Anderson missing which assisted Australia greatly. I'm very happy if we can bat first and score 350.

I remember when Craig McDermott came back for his most recent stint as bowling coach. The AU bowlers all started to pitch the ball up a little more. They started getting more late movement and they started getting more nicks. Sure, they got driven a bit but you need to be prepared for that. I would have liked to have seen Siddle and the others teasing the Englishmen a little more. maybe that 1 metre worth you just mentioned.

Many seem to implying the Ashes is already over. But as Ronan has pointed out, Australia often start a series in England well only to fade away. We seem to have quickly forgotten that we were 8-122 on day one when England were a strike bowler short. And i wouldn't expect Smith to make nearly 300 runs in every test. Australia only mildly warm favourites at this stage.

If Anderson doesn’t play any significant part in this series, it really is like 2005 for Australia with McGrath getting injured. I was just thinking the same thing Chris. Unless they can unearth another bowler of his ability in English conditions, noting that Broad is likely in his final days too, it's hard to imagine they'll be as strong at home as they have been. Far gone from the point where they had Cook, Stauss, Trott, Pietersen, Bell all averaging in the 40’s now they only have one 40+ average in the whole team, with all the others south of 35. It really is one of the weakest batting line ups in modern times (between Aus and Eng). The closest example I can think of is when Hussey and Ponting retired and Clarke was left as pretty much the only decent bat for us. Yet 12 months later Warner and Smith had break out seasons and there was no turn back. You do wonder if any of their younger talent is going to turn out like that.

It’s often Broad’s problem as well. He can go on for a number of tests like this and then suddenly he gets it half a yard fuller and takes a stack. Then he reverts back and everyone wonders why. I guess most bowlers have a natural length.

I doubt Curran would be averaging 31 if he had to come out opening against the new ball on the first morning of a test match! But either way, I still think the idea of having 6 main bowlers in a team simply is one too many, you are going to have people in the team as bowlers who aren't going to get a lot of bowling in, and will have too long between spells. Which is why the question remains, do they really not have any batsmen in the country who could do better with the bat than their bowlers? Plus, England fear Nathan Lyon as it is. Not sure they want to play a left-arm bowler to help give him more rough outside the right-handers off-stump. Right-arm bowlers bowling around the wicket create some, but generally out a lot wider than left-arm over will create.

Well said @Chris Kettlewell - I agree, 5 pace bowlers is too many. If the pitch is a green top then you'd expect a low scoring game and one of the 5 virtually not bowling and the spinner unused. You'd also want a strong batting line up as every run would be needed. If it's a flat track and high scoring then you'd expect your spinner to bowl many overs keeping it tight and 4 pace bowlers cycled through the other end would be sufficient. Playing 5 pace bowlers AND a spinner rings of a "let's hope one of them has a chance of getting Smith out" approach. If Smith has altered their approach to team balance then they're already gone! Having only 4 specialist batsmen and a keeper batting in the top 6 is a dangerous path at Test level I reckon. The other thing is, I doubt Roy is a batsman who can bat long. He's a hit or get out player as was shown by his calamitous 2nd innings effort in the 1st test. I understand the attraction of Curran but I reckon you'd have to not play Broad, Woakes, Archer or Leach to squeeze him in. Perhaps England's best bet is to prepare green tops and not play a spinner. That way they could attempt to negate Lyon where they will struggle to match up. Australia will still pick Lyon which means England could line Broad, Woakes, Archer, Stokes and Curran (or play an extra batsman instead of Curran) up against Cummins, Pattinson, Siddle and a less effective Lyon on a seaming wicket.

They could also just play Archer and Curran instead of Anderson and Moeen and have Denly bowl the rubbish spin Moeen was bowling anyway.

correct but Curran's in reasonable form and averages 31.81 in Test Cricket higher then Bancroft, Marsh or Labuschagne. Denly and Bairstow are walking wickets. If its not Curran then at least Foakes has to replace Denly and give Bairstow a chance as a specialist batsman. Whether by design or poor WC selection Australia had only 4 players from the WC semi in their XI and 2 of those in Warner and Smith have had a very long recent layoff. Plus Lyon didn't play much ODI either basically only Cummins has been playing the whole time. (I wonder how the WC could have gone with Pattinson instead of Stoinis) England on the other hand had 7 out of 11 players, 7/10 effectively who have just played too much cricket. The other 3 in Burns, Denly and Broad you could see wanted to be there, and generally those 3 performed to their ability.