With the pre-Ashes war of words in full swing, the former Australia coach Darren Lehmann mocked England’s predictable tactics in their only warm up match, only to receive a wave of abuse over “sandpapergate”.
England opted not to select a specialist spinner in their main XI for the warm up against the Lions, with Shoaib Bashir and Will Jacks in the second-string side. Instead, England opted for five seamers and Joe Root’s part-time off-spin, which was clobbered for 117 runs in 14 overs.
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Lehmann, the Northamptonshire coach who will commentate for ABC on the Ashes, posted on social media: “No spinner [tick], bowl first [tick] – never bat first, this is how they will set up. Over rates, who cares”.
England have almost always selected a specialist spinner under the captaincy of Ben Stokes, but with spicy pitches mooted on this tour, Bashir could be left out. England have had regular run-ins with match officials over their slow over rate in recent years, which have resulted in fines. Stokes has even refused to sign the official forms provided at the end of a match by the International Cricket Council.
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In response to the cheeky dig, a barrage of England fans took aim at Lehmann over sandpapergate which, seven years on, still haunts Australian cricket. Lehmann, once an outstanding batsman for Australia and Yorkshire, was Australia’s head coach for five years until 2018, when he resigned following the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa, after which Steve Smith and David Warner were banned for a year each, and Cameron Bancroft for nine months.
Smith, who will captain Australia in the first Test in the absence of the injured Pat Cummins, has also questioned England’s tactics. He believes that they may have selected the wrong bowling attack for the tour, favouring pace that has traditionally been required in Australia, despite a change in conditions in recent years. Pitches on Australia have tended to be a bit greener in the last few seasons which, allied to changes to the Kookaburra ball, have resulted in bowlers holding sway over batsmen.
Steve Smith has questioned England’s plan to put faith in quick bowlers for the Ashes – PA/Martin Rickett
England have selected five genuine quicks, which is in stark contrast to the swing and seam produced by the likes of James Anderson, Chris Woakes and Ollie Robinson on recent tours Down Under.
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“It’s different on the wickets now,” Smith said. “I mean, those sort of nibblers [seamers] can be quite tricky. So they might have got things the wrong way around, if that makes sense, in terms of the pace, from previous years.
“Obviously, they’ve got those guys at their disposal now. They probably weren’t fit and ready, or old enough, maybe, a few years back. Sometimes the slower guys are almost harder to play on those wickets where you have to make the pace, but yeah, we’ll wait and see, won’t we?”
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