Opinion
Despite thumping England by nine wickets in a commanding victory to open the Ashes series, Australia have a few issues to sort out before Thursday’s second clash at Adelaide.
For the tourists, they have problems left, right and centre after their insipid performance at the Gabba which will be a lot harder to rectify before play gets underway at the Adelaide Oval in the pink-ball day-nighter.
Although England have a wider squad of players with their Lions team also in the country, there’s an element of shuffling the Titanic deckchairs with their team – can they rely on James Anderson and Stuart Broad in the twilight of their career or Ben Stokes to find form after a long layoff to turn their fortunes dramatically around?
The burning questions for Australia
Hoff’s hassles: Josh Hazlewood was restricted by a side strain, particularly on day three in Brisbane, when the dreaded fast bowler’s “grunter” muscle injury meant he bowled only eight overs.
He returned on day four to take Jos Buttler’s wicket but after flying home to Sydney on Sunday, he has been ruled out of the second game of the five-match series.
West Australian young gun Jhye Richardson should be called up for his third Test, although uncapped Queensland seamer Michael Neser has also been on the fringe of selection for a couple of years, and offers a similar bowling style to Hazlewood’s line-and-length mantra.
With Hazlewood out of the Adelaide game, that could mean Mitchell Starc gets a rest in Melbourne or Sydney as new skipper Pat Cummins looks to manage the workload of his fellow quicks over the course of the six-week schedule.
Warner’s sticky rib situation: Veteran opener David Warner said he could have batted on day four at the Gabba if needed but after copping a couple of nasty blows to the ribcage, he was not sighted for the third and fourth innings of the Test.
He was fortunate to ride his luck to 94 and with fellow opener Marcus Harris struggling for runs, Australia will play Warner if he can battle through the pain barrier.
However, they have an experienced replacement at the ready in Queensland captain Usman Khawaja who averages 96.8 from the seven times he’s opened for Australia, including two tons.
Harris on last chance: Whether he’s partnering Warner or Khawaja in the Second Test, there is unlikely to be a place for Harris on Boxing Day at the MCG if he again fails against England.
After registering scores of three and nine not out in Brisbane, his career average is a mediocre 23.15 after 11 Tests and just 10 from four clashes with England.
The Victorian left-hander has looked tentative outside the off stump and with the pink ball expected to swing in Adelaide, it will be an extremely tough proposition for him to find the runs needed to salvage his Test career.
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
The burning questions for England
Recall Broad and Anderson?: The England camp received widespread condemnation for the surprising decision to omit their record-breaking veteran pace duo from the Gabba Test but captain Joe Root was defiant after the game that their absence was not a factor in the loss.
They have 1156 Test wickets between them and using the pink ball in a day-nighter should suit the swing exponents but Root offered no guarantee that both or even either seamer would be included at Adelaide.
Anderson was underdone before Brisbane but if Broad was available, they should have at least played him in Brisbane rather than going into a series opener with four front-line bowlers with a combined experience of four Tests in Australia coming from Chris Woakes being part of the 4-0 drubbing in 2017-18.
Jack Leach and Joe Root. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
Leach bloodbath: Australia is the toughest country in the world for opposing spinners, particularly those who don’t particularly turn the ball a great deal.
The Aussie batters went on a seek and destroy mission with Leach and even though Marnus Labuschagne threw his wicket away as they flayed the left-arm tweaker to all parts of the ground, they didn’t let up. His 13 overs went for 112, which meant Joe Root had to cycle through his pacemen more than he wanted and also had to bowl himself to chew up some overs.
Off-spinner Dom Bess is part of the travelling party but is also untested in conditions Down Under, has never played Australia and has a modest record of 36 wickets at 33.97 from 14 Tests. Still, he can’t fare much worse than the Leach bloodbath at the Gabba.
Cupboard’s bare to fix the batting: Root and Dawid Malan, who each made it into the 80s in the second dig, can hold their head high after the Brisbane belting but the rest of the English batters looked out of their depth.
Star all-rounder Ben Stokes is clearly underdone, openers Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed have a reputation for not giving away their wicket lightly and Ollie Pope has promise but none of them looked comfortable against Australia, particularly with the bounce of the wicket.
England have Jonny Bairstow and Zak Crawley on tour but rotating them into the team is hardly going to cause Cummins and his cohorts any concerns – the Poms are probably best off giving their Gabba line-up another crack and hope they can benefit from getting some proper match play under their belt.
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