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Opinion
The green wicket at Lord’s is in stark contrast to the road rolled at Edgbaston last week but I don’t think the Australian team will be too worried about the pitches going from one extreme to the other.
Australia’s fast bowlers will be licking their lips at the home of cricket after breaking their backs in Birmingham trying to get any kind of movement off the seam from the dead wicket in the first Ashes Test.
And the Aussies love playing at Lord’s. Over the years, even when the team hasn’t been travelling too crash hot, it’s phenomenal how well we’ve gone at the famous old ground.
Pat Cummins has indicated that he’s going to wait until the toss again before he finalises his XI and if it looks like it’s going to be a green seamer, I’d be sticking with Scott Boland ahead of Mitchell Starc.
If the curators shave it right back, then Starc probably comes into the team but live, green grass means it’ll seam and nobody is better at that than Boland.
The English batters tried to belt him off his usual length in the first game but they won’t have that luxury this time around if he’s nipping it both ways off the seam.
For a batting master like Joe Root, a seaming wicket won’t lessen his impact too much but for the rest of their line-up it could be a massive problem.
Particularly their top order of Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope. Duckett was out nicking both times in Edgbaston, Crawley got runs in the first innings but we know he can be hot and cold and Pope has struggled against the Aussie quicks at Test level.
Harry Brook can get runs quickly but if the ball’s moving around, will he be able to maintain that scoring rate?
Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes have said they’re not going to change from their belief in Bazball
Wicketkeeping is another area where I think England have a disadvantage. Alex Carey was brilliant with the bat and his glovework was superb but even though Jonny Bairstow whacked a quick-fire 78 first up, he gave away many more runs by making errors with the gloves.
Mitchell Starc. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
You can’t get away with that in Test cricket when one mistake could mean you spend several more hours in the field.
Their fielding overall was a touch sloppy so I think they would have been given plenty of extra practice on that front the last few days to turn that around.
England’s decision to bring in Josh Tongue for Moeen Ali is a bit of a surprise. Moeen was bowling in the nets but his finger injury meant he was a passenger at times in the first Test.
To me it seems clear that England know it’s not going to spin at Lord’s so they’ll just use Root here and there with his offies to get through a few overs and rely on their quicks.
Their batters will probably try to target Nathan Lyon if there’s not much turn in the wicket but he’s been around more than long enough now to know what to do in situations like that and I don’t think he’ll mind too much if they charge down the wicket.
Tongue’s a bit faster than their other seamers and he did well on debut last month against Ireland after looking a little bit nervous to start off.
But it must be that Mark Wood is still not fit enough for the demands of Test cricket because he’s their fastest bowler and I thought they really missed having someone with his pace in the first Test.
And I don’t think they’re counting on getting anything more than one spell per day from Stokes so there’s plenty of concerns there with their attack.
For the Aussies, I’m looking for Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith to bounce back.
For them to win the first Test with those two getting out cheaply in both innings was a fine effort but if those two get going, then the Poms could be staring down the barrel of a 2-0 series deficit.
The Aussies have shown they can play on any surface, even in India once they got used to the conditions, so I’m backing them to win however the pitch plays.