Ashes Scout: 'Job on the line' - Clarke doubts Root toss 'courage', Ange's hilarious Warnie confession

Former Australian captain Michael Clarke says Joe Root might be keen to lose the toss in the second Test starting Thursday to avoid having to make a potentially career-defining decision.

Root was criticised for the decision to leave out his front-line pacemen James Anderson and Stuart Broad in Brisbane, and then bat first, putting the faith in spinner Jack Leach instead.

Australia’s nine-wicket win was achieved in complete comfort and Clarke believes another win to the hosts in Adelaide will lead to a 5-0 result.

Root will be faced with another big deicison should the toss go his way.

(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

“This might be another one of those tosses you want to lose,” Clarke told Sydney radio show Big Sports Breakfast.

“England, I think, would want to bowl if there is anything in the surface, particularly with Broad and Anderson.

“I don’t think Joe Root will have the courage to win the toss and bowl. [It’s] a massive call [if they bowl first].

“I’ll tell you now, if you are Joe Root, you win the toss and bowl and get beaten again, his job could be on the line.

“The fact he didn’t pick the two experienced bowlers for Brisbane, they lose. Then he wins the toss in Adelaide, sends Australia in and loses.

“I don’t want to be Joe Root if that happens. That is trouble.”

Clarke said the Adelaide Test was “make-or-break” for the series.

“No good saving Broad or Anderson for the next Test. The series is over if they don’t win this,” said Clarke.

“They have to win England. If they lose this Test match, I’m saying 5-0. They can’t afford a draw.”

‘Panicked students’

Sections of the English media were left bemused at Root’s latest selection, with Mark Wood, who showed flashes of pace at the Gabba left out of the 12.

“England have not been shy in trumpeting their forensic planning for the 2021-22 Ashes tour,” wrote Tim Wigmore in the UK Telegraph.

“But their attitude to team selection so far resembles a panicked student giving the answers to questions they have practised, rather than the ones on the exam paper in front of them.

“For months before the Test at Brisbane, England had envisaged leaving out both Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad. But when they were confronted by a Gabba wicket that was unusually green, after weeks of rain in Brisbane, they still omitted both their two leading Test wicket-takers.

“In Adelaide, England will now attempt to level the series without Mark Wood. As with the selection in Brisbane, in other circumstances the decision may have made sense – namely, if he had bowled more than 25.4 overs at the Gabba, had far less rest between Tests or if the tourists had not lost the opening game by nine wickets.

“As it is, England are entering a must-win match without a bowler who showed real venom at the Gabba, not to mention sufficient skill to defy the lack of assistance for bowlers with the old ball in an outstanding spell that dismissed Steve Smith.”

Without Wood, said Wigmore, “England will be less able to cope with what awaits in Adelaide after the new ball.

“Despite what the Adelaide groundsman claimed, there is scant reason to believe that, in lieu of high pace, spin can provide a meaningful threat with the old ball. In day-night Tests in Australia, overseas spinners average 72.8, with only the wonderful Ravichandran Ashwin claiming more than three wickets in a Test.

“Assembling a bowling attack is not just an exercise in picking a team’s best bowlers. It is also an exercise in picking complementary, mutually enhancing skills. Of England’s specialist pace bowlers down under, Wood is the only one who is not best-used with the new ball. ”

Butcher carves up Root

Former England Test opener Mark Butcher, who was part of the team’s coach staff down under four years ago, also jumped on the theme of England’s pre-tour planning and how it came to nought at the Gabba.

“England simply have to play the conditions in front of them, and to their strengths,” Butcher wrote in the Guardian.

“In Brisbane Root won the toss, took in the green pitch and the heavy cloud cover, and got his decision horribly wrong. If he had been confronted with an identical surface and forecast at Edgbaston he would have bowled first and chosen a seamer-heavy attack; in Australia he left out the best part of 1,200 Test wickets in Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad, chose a spinner who can’t get a game in England, and decided to bat.

“I would have thought the decision would have involved a series of discussions with the experienced coaching staff, senior players and analyst. We have been told regularly that this Ashes campaign has been two years in the making and yet despite all this England completely blew the advantage of winning the toss and briefly grasping the initiative. If the team does not recover, those involved must take responsibility.”

‘This bloke’s overrated’

Celtic and former Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou caught up with spin legend Shane Warne thanks to their shared connection through a betting company this week and engaged in some mutal backslapping with a tinge of banter, incuding one funny admission.

Postecoglou said he was a big fan of Australia and Victorian cricket as a kid, even though his father had no idea about the sport.

“I’m an ethinc boy, an immigrant and it’s crazy how growing up in Melbourne you had to love Aussie rules and in the summer it was all cricket,’ Postecoglou said.

“As kids, in the summer, that’s all we did, just played cricket the whole time.

“I’m sure everyone’s got a Shane Warne story and I’ll share mine.

“I’ve got five or six mates and we always used to watch the Test matches together, at times the Ashes here in England.

“Just before your Gatting ball we were all sitting in the loungeroom – and no one is owning up to it but it was definitely said by one of us ‘this bloke’s overrated’.

(Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

“No one will claim it but I’ve got a feeling I know who it was.”

Postecoglou, who is proving a popular manager at the Scottish giants, said he was in love with Victoria’s cricket team growing up.

“I was obsessed, so parochial about anyone who played for Victoria and played for Australia. I don’t think it’s as parochial now but back then if a Victorian made the Test team we’d be buzzing,”