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Opinion
The English media have been claiming the momentum has changed and that they’ve landed a psychological blow on Australia after winning the third Test at Headingley.
Not true. You can’t swing momentum with such a narrow victory like they did in getting home by three wickets.
The Aussies still have the stronger all-round squad but they just need to work out a solution to Mark Wood.
Bowling as quick as I’ve seen anyone bowl since Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee and Shaun Tait were in their prime a couple of decades ago, Wood rattled the Australians on day one.
His pace was so good that he managed to get the ball through Usman Khawaja’s defences to rattle his stumps, which is no easy feat, on day one and then when England were into the tail, he cleaned them up in no time flat.
You could see the lower-order batters were genuinely concerned about facing someone bowling so fast and the last five wickets fell for just 18 runs.
Chris Woakes celebrates with Mark Wood after hitting the winning runs. (Photo by Ashley Allen/Getty Images)
He deserved to be player of the match not just for the way he bowled but his two efforts with the bat at No.9 had a huge impact on the final result.
When the Poms were 7-142, still 121 behind on first innings, it looked like the Aussies were in the box seat but he thrashed away with 24 off eight. Add in his cameo at the end of the match to get England home and he hit 40 off 14 for the match.
He’s there for a good time not a long time with the bat and it is just power hitting from the moment he gets to the crease, setting up like a baseballer (or a Bazballer) and swinging for the fences.
You can’t say England have shifted the momentum after such a tight game but they have brought X-factor into the series with Wood.
For Australia it’s now about combating an individual.
Where I think the Aussies missed a trick is some of their tactics in the field when England were chasing the victory target. They should have given Todd Murphy three overs before lunch to see if he could settle into his groove and they waited too late before adopting the bumper strategy.
Pat Cummins, and Steve Smith who does a lot of the field changes when the captain is bowling, should have dug it in short earlier on to Harry Brook and Zak Crawley.
I was surprised to see Smithy out in the deep when Cummins was bowling. Even when the field spreads, he should stay in the ring somewhere to get a good look at the angles so he knows exactly what’s going on.
Overall I think the Australians have kept their composure and they’ll reset for Manchester next week.
I think there’ll be a couple of changes depending on the wicket. Josh Hazlewood coming in for Scott Boland looks a certainty. Boland wasn’t awful and was a bit unlucky but Hazlewood with his experience needs to come back in.
It’s a plus for Australia that apart from Smith’s century at Lord’s, they’ve managed to be 2-1 up after three games even though he hasn’t scored bulk runs outside of that and Marnus Labuschagne is yet to convert one of his starts into a ton.
Moeen Ali couldn’t believe it himself when he got both of them in the second innings to shots they’d rather forget.
Khawaja and Travis Head, who we had doubts about in England, have been excellent and then Mitchell Marsh comes in late for the third Test and smokes a century when everyone else is falling around him.
It was a weird game in the sense that in each of the four innings there was only one batter who passed 50 – Marsh with his 118 then Ben Stokes smashing sixes with the tail for his 80, Heady doing similar in getting 77 and then Harry Brook’s 75, which was his most mature innings in that he didn’t play any rash shots.
David Warner of Australia reacts after being dismissed by Stuart Broad. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Three bowlers took five-fors – Wood in the first innings and then Cummins and Mitchell Starc, but apart from Chris Woakes getting six wickets for the match and two handy lower-order efforts with the bat, I think all the other players on both teams won’t be satisfied with their contributions.
I said before the start of the series that David Warner is on a two-game buffer. He was excellent at Lord’s, failed again in Leeds so if he goes cheaply both times in the next Test I think the time has come to go with someone else.
You can’t expect openers to average 50 over here – his second-innings runs at Edgbaston were handy and he did his job at Lord’s but it wasn’t a good look for him getting out to Stuart Broad yet again both times so another double failure and he’d be gone.
If Green is not fit, I’d say it’ll be the same batting line-up at Old Trafford but they could look at playing him and Marsh in the middle order and everyone goes up a spot in the order with Labuschagne opening or put Head straight up there like they did in India when Warner was injured.
England’s Jonny Bairstow drops a catch from Australia’s Travis Head. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images)
England have got problems of their own. Jonny Bairstow’s keeping has been awful. He looked like he was distracted when he was batting, trying to goad the Aussies after the stumping incident in the second Test.
Moeen Ali is not a No.3 and Brook is definitely suited to the middle order so that’s another issue for them to solve whether they bring in a new batter like Dan Lawrence or put Bairstow or someone else up the order.
Ollie Robinson will probably be out with his back injury but that means Jimmy Anderson gets to play what could be his farewell at his home ground.
It was a third straight cracking Test where every ball you’re riding on and you never know which twist in the tale is coming next.
Everything’s set up nicely for next week at Old Trafford but the English shouldn’t be getting too carried away just yet. Australia still hold the advantage and England have to win both Tests to get the Ashes urn out of our grasp.