All being well, England’s cricketers should land in South Australia on Saturday. Those on the port side of the plane will have spotted the mighty Adelaide Oval during their descent. Although at 2-0 down in this Ashes series, a visual cue as to what is at stake next week is hardly needed.
The mini-break spent licking wounds in Noosa generated headlines and interest but was hardly unprecedented as modern tours go. Among the reaction was Alex Carey recalling how Australia’s players scattered after the third Test on the 2023 Ashes tour and he personally visited Edinburgh.
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There were some familiar grumblings at the start of that trip regarding the absence of any county fixtures for Australia. Allan Border called the decision to keep warm-up games in-house “fraught with danger”, much as Ian Botham and Graham Gooch did before this one.
But the fact that Australia were 2-1 up when they downed tools mid-series meant that eyebrows were barely raised. The players were left alone and it was not part of the inquest when the series finished in a 2-2 draw, making it 22 years and counting since their last win in England.
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England’s cricketers have a far bigger profile here and their break has looked like a goldfish bowl from afar. Australia is a vast continent but a small place in other ways; small enough for news crews to easily be sent to the Sunshine Coast to spy on a bunch of sportsmen turned schooner scorers hanging out in their thongs (or flip-flops, for the alarmed back home).
Decompression is no bad thing, if it was genuinely possible. But the private discussions between the leadership and the players will have been more important. Given the mixed messaging that spilled out of mouths after that gory defeat in Brisbane, essential even.
Stokes spoke of his dressing room being “no place for weak men” and for a team told to play without a fear of failure, this will probably have required some explaining. Brendon McCullum sounds like he has been trying to dissuade the players from over-training all tour which, given they are also told to take charge of their games, sounds like another contradiction.
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For Greg Chappell, among the more considered of the Australian greats and also supportive of McCullum, Noosa needs to have been an “ego-free debrief”. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, he added: “This constructive confrontation should have framed discussions around “how” rather than “who” not blaming individuals, but dissecting collective processes.”
Results are ultimately all that count and if the break successfully untangled crossed wires then a sensible city like postcard-perfect Adelaide may be a decent next stop. The third Test that starts late on Tuesday night is a day game and at a venue with a reputation. The attack still needs to fire but compared to Perth’s bounce and the pink-ball caper, it should feel more familiar cricket.
“It’s like Australia are just playing the percentages really well and England are making the same mistakes,” said Tim Paine, the former Australia captain who now works with their A side. “Having said that, I think if England get it right, they’re going to be really dangerous. If there’s any wicket and ground in the country that suits them more than this … I don’t think there is one.”
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The so-called Christmas Test may also serve to tell us whether England’s faith in another aspect of the project still holds: whether plucking talent on the basis of raw attributes, then hot-housing it almost exclusively in the England bubble, has furnished them with battle-ready options in the squad.
Changes to the XI feel likely and two of the unused thus far, Jacob Bethell and Shoaib Bashir, are very much products of this approach. Bethell is the spare bat who could replace Ollie Pope despite no first-class hundred, while Stokes called Bashir his No 1 spinner just a week ago – words that may not hold true when the returning Pat Cummins is handed England’s teamsheet at the toss.
Nathan Lyon will play for Australia, that much we do know, with Adelaide traditionally demanding a spinner in the XI. But with Will Jacks now into the series, it is hard not to detect a late wobble about Bashir after his development was paused by injury during the summer. On tour it has been a struggle for control, be it in the nets or going wicketless for the Lions.
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Selection will become clearer once England resume training on Sunday and, after five chances were ruinously put down in Brisbane, fielding might be a decent place to begin. The fundamentalism may be starting to fray at the edges but the fundamentals need addressing regardless.
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