Ashes preview: England bring 'Bazball' to clash with world champions
Edgbaston, in the heart of England, has the honour and privilege of hosting the first of the five matches series that starts this Friday, with England looking to bring their famous and revolutionary style of Test cricket to a clash with the new world champions.
Much has changed in the England camp since the last Ashes series in 2022 where Australia retained the iconic 10.5cm terracotta trophy with an empathic 4-0 victory on their home soil.
England's dreaming
After an ensuing 1-0 away defeat in the Caribbean, head coach Chris Silverwood was replaced by New Zealander Brendon McCullum, whilst Joe Root relinquished the captaincy to Ben Stokes.
McCullum and Stokes together then implemented a new, unconventional mode of cricket in this longest format of the game which has to McCullum’s bemusement been dubbed as ‘Bazball’.
It involves ultra-positive and attacking batting as opposed to the sedentary pace usually associated with Test cricket. So successful has ‘Bazball’ been that, in the five series under the charge of McCullum and Stokes, England have won four and drawn one by winning 11 of the 13 matches (L2).
England come into this series on the back of a convincing ten-wicket win over Ireland just a few days ago. Ireland were put into bat by Stokes and were bowled out for just 172 with veteran of 162 Tests Stuart Broad (5/51) notching up his 20th five-wicket haul, taking him to 582 wickets, the fifth most in Test history.
In their first innings England’s number three Ollie Pope top scored with a superb maiden double-century (205) and, along with opener Ben Duckett who made his highest Test score to date with an impressive 182 off 178 balls, helped their side to 524/4 off just 82.4 overs (6.39 rpo) before Stokes declared with a lead of 352.
Ireland made 362 all out in their second innings with debutant Josh Tongue being the standout bowler getting his name embossed on the Lord’s honours board with his 5/66. Zak Crawley then took just four balls in England’s second innings to make the ten runs needed to seal the victory.
Injuries have plagued England’s fast bowling department with the likes of Jofra Archer, Ollie Stone and Mark Wood all unavailable for selection. Therefore the likely seam line-up will be spearheaded by Test cricket’s highest-ever seam wicket-taker James Anderson along with Stuart Broad and Ollie Robinson.
Left-arm orthodox spinner Jack Leach incurred an injury in the recent match against Ireland and he has been replaced by the returning from Test retirement Moeen Ali OBE, who will bowl his right arm off-spin in an England Test shirt for the first time since his 2/118 against India at the Oval in 2021.
Confident Aussies
Recently crowned World Test Champions Australia will be coming into this series high in confidence. The successful side they put to field against India in last week’s WTC final was the same eleven that beat England in their last encounter in January 2022.
That consistency in selection has been intrinsic to the Aussies holding second place in the ICC rankings. The selectors’ only real injury concern has been that of key seamer Josh Hazlewood who has not donned a baggy green cap since early January this year after sustaining a side injury.
However, he has now been declared fit and is hopeful that he will get to play in at least three of the five Tests scheduled.
Thankfully for the visitors, his omission has not been detrimental to the team as his replacement Scott Boland has made it very difficult for the selectors to find a way back in for Hazlewood after taking 33 wickets at just 14.57 apiece from his first eight Tests.
That emphatic 209-run win for Pat Cummins’ men against the world number one ranked India last week made it six wins from their last ten matches (L2, D2).
However, there are worries for head coach Andrew Macdonald at the top of the batting order where openers David Warner and Usman Khawaja failed to launch after making two runs for the opening stand in both innings and aggregating just 57 runs (avg 14.25) in the WTC final.
There is no such anxiety for him in the bowling department where all three seamers Cummins, Scott Boland and Mitchell Starc, and classy spinner Nathan Lyon looked in rude form with all four having taken several wickets in the match and putting in excellent performances.
Key battle: England’s best-ever seam bowler James Anderson is 15 wickets away from the unthinkable 700-wicket milestone. His best work is done at home grounds in England where he has taken 429 of his 685 wickets.
He is likely to bowl at Australia’s best batter Steve Smith who is 53 runs short of 9,000 Test runs and averages an incredible 60.04 across 97 Test matches having made 31 centuries and 37 fifties. Anderson has dismissed Smith eight times at an expensive cost of 402 runs (avg 50).
Stat attack: The average first innings score across the last ten Edgbaston Tests is 296.
The 20 teams to score at least 350 runs in the first innings of an Edgbaston Test have an almost undefeated record of W9, D10, L1.
Joe Root’s Test average of 50.24 drops to 38.75 in games against Australia.
Root fell four times to Scott Boland in the 2021/22 series in Australia at a head-to-head average of 9.75.
Aussie opener David Warner is averaging just 13.33 from his last six innings.
Stuart Broad dismissed Warner seven times in the 2019 series at an average of 5.00.
Zak Crawley (72 runs at 18.00), Ben Stokes (118 runs at 16.86) and Ollie Pope (52 runs at 13.00) all average fewer than 20 runs per wicket at Edgbaston.
Steve Smith averages a mammoth 113.67 against the bowling of Moeen Ali in Test cricket at a rate of 4.38rpo, having been dismissed just three times in nearly 78 overs.
