Thoughts on the second test
That Joe Root led from the front after a painful injury amidships and the England resistance extended to the second session of the final day must not disguise the fact that this was an inept performance against an Aussie side bereft of their captain and two key bowlers – Pat Cummins and Josh Hazelwood
On the first day, bearing in mind that England had to win, the tactic of bowling short to a defensive field was bizarre.
The Aussies were happy to accumulate a big enough total to guarantee a draw at least.
Joe Root and Dawid Malan – one of the few selectoral successes – did create a platform but none built upon it.
Had England scored 150 more runs and occupied the crease then a fifth day draw might still have been a possibility.
As it was Australia did not enforce the follow on and set an impossible total of over 400 runs. England ran out of batters.
Mulling over the tea leaves of now being two down with three to go, I question Root’s captaincy.
It does not seem to affect his form – indeed one theory runs that out at the crease he is free of worries – but he comes over as weak.
There are too many loud voices like Stuart Broad, who has a full page column in the Mail on Sunday in which to air his beefs, and Jimmy Andersen.
As I have said many times these two are only effective in English seam conditions with the Dukes ball – not on hard Australian tracks with the Kookaburra.
Jos Buttler put too many down behind the stumps and Ben Foakes should replace him and, if you have a passive spinner holding up his end, he should at least be able to score runs.
I do not buy into the Covid argument of being necessarily ill-prepared.
It was the same for the Aussies who had to deal with the debacle of sacking Tim Paine and the loss of Pat Cummins.
True, we could have expected in forward planning to have the services of speedsters Joffa Archer, Olly Stone and Ben Stokes but I heard on good authority that Chief Selector Ed Smith understood the importance of pace but lost the argument and his job.
