Australia's seam bowling depth is now the envy of England

There is, it seems, an injury scare a day as we edge closer to the Ashes. Jofra Archer (out), Olly Stone (out of the first half), Brydon Carse (same), James Anderson (cross fingers, but should be fine), now Ollie Robinson (let’s see how that scan goes). And that is before we get to the mysterious case of Ben Stokes.

You will notice that all those names are English, although overnight it emerged that Josh Hazlewood, who has been injured rather a lot over the past couple of years, had left the Indian Premier League early due to side soreness. Scans have not revealed anything too alarming, and he slots into the Anderson category.

Still, Australia seem to have the upper hand when it comes to bowlers’ fitness as they set off for England this week. Jhye Richardson is a long-term absentee, but Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland have all been gently resting up at home while those names listed above have been toiling away in the shires, or India.

That is at least in part due to the performances of Michael Neser and Sean Abbott, their next men in, on the county circuit. Both men are having fine seasons, and were excellent with bat and ball again this weekend.

It seemed slightly odd when neither Neser nor Abbott, especially the former, made Australia’s initial squad. Not just because they are excellent cricketers, but because of the make-up of that squad. While both Marcus Harris and Matt Renshaw were selected as cover for the top order, only four frontline seamers were selected for three spots.

The balancing argument was that Neser and Abbott were playing county cricket, so would be on hand should Australia need them. They are due to train with the squad at a camp at Beckenham before the World Test Championship final, and the squad named was only for the first three Tests of their six on the tour, so there is room for manoeuvre.

In 2019, when Australia did not lose an Ashes series in England for the first time since 2001, their strength was built on the depth of their fast bowling, and their intelligent rotation of resources. Only Cummins played all five games, there were four for Hazlewood, three for Peter Siddle, two for James Pattinson, and just one for Starc, while Neser was an unused travelling reserve. This time, the sheer depth may not be as good, but the best might be even better.

If Australia’s depth is to be tested by an unrelenting schedule that features six Tests between June 7 and July 31, then Neser and Abbott’s early season efforts could prove just as significant as the much-discussed county tune-ups of Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne.

Smith finished up with 122 runs in three innings, and was on the end of some, erm, marginal lbw calls. Against Smith’s Sussex this week, Neser smashed 123 after Labuschagne’s 138 in Glamorgan’s second-highest total of all time, 737. That leaves Neser averaging 51.8 with the bat, to go with 19 wickets at 25.6 with the ball, including a truly stunning hat-trick against Yorkshire this month. Strong, sturdy and swift enough, Neser is perhaps the dream Dukes ball bowler, and would very much be part of English plans

Abbott’s first-class record with bat and ball is weaker than Neser’s and he is yet to play a Test, but he is another county marvel. He is the perfect overseas player for this Surrey generation, which values all-round adaptability above all else. He rarely takes the new ball for them, and rarely bats above No 8, but he has a significant impact on just about every game he plays. Against Kent this week, that meant leading a lower-order charge and chipping in with a couple of key wickets as part of a five-man seam attack. He is one of six Surrey seamers with 14 or more wickets this season, and one of six Surrey batsmen with more than 250 runs.

With confirmation of Hazlewood’s vulnerability and the attritional nature of the schedule, it would be no surprise if Neser and even Abbott use their county springboard to help playing a key role in the Ashes.

How are England’s seamers?

James Anderson - Injured. Due back for 1st Ashes Test
Stuart Broad - Fit
Ollie Robinson - Doubtful
Jofra Archer - Out
Mark Wood - Fit, on paternity leave (unlikely to face Ireland)
Chris Woakes - Fit
Olly Stone - Out until third Ashes Test
Matthew Potts - Fit
Jamie Overton - Out
Sam Curran - Fit
Saqib Mahmood - Fit
Craig Overton - Fit

Talking points

• At this stage of his career, aged 38 and with almost 34,000 career runs on the clock, Alastair Cook is not doing too many things for the first time. So it seemed a slight shame that he missed out on a maiden first-class hundred at Trent Bridge by a single run this weekend (his average of 25 is the lowest of the major English venues). Who knows whether this is Cook’s final season, or if he will add to his 73 first-class hundreds, but he has an opportunity for a maiden ton at the Ageas Bowl in a couple of months’ time.

• So farewell to county cricket, Steve Smith. Hopefully that is not the last we see from him around our domestic game, in an Ashes summer or not. He left with some warm words for his Sussex team-mates, including the young all-rounder James Coles, who made a maiden first-class century this weekend. Some reckon Smith’s presence left Sussex a bit unbalanced, because it meant they could not pick their other Australian, Nathan McAndrew, who is a reliable source of wickets. Sussex drew all three of Smith’s games, partly because of rain.

• You can bet Northants were glad they do not have to play Hampshire again this year. They have made a total of 444 runs against them in four innings, and suffered two enormous defeats. They look destined for the drop and, unless Kent can sort their batting out, they will join them.

• We reported on Friday about Arafat Bhuiyan’s instant impact for Kent against Surrey. The 26-year-old was one of three players from the South Asian Cricket Academy who made their Championship debut in this round, while another, Jafer Chohan, made his Twenty20 debut for Yorkshire at Edgbaston on Saturday. SACA is the work of Kabir Ali and Tom Brown, a PhD researcher, who is keen to ensure British Asians are as well represented in the professional game as they are at county level. A step in the right direction has been taken in this last week.

Performance of the week

Durham are flying high in Division Two, where they look by some distance the best side. They have cycled through some international spinners this year: Todd Murphy was pulled out by Australia, Matt Kuhnemann suffered a stress fracture, then Matt Parkinson came on loan. But the signing of Ajaz Patel has been a masterstroke: he picked up five wickets in each innings (and bashed some handy lower-order runs) as they were forced to take the slow road to victory at Bristol. Patel found some prodigious turn, reminding us all that top-class spin – especially finger-spin – still has a role to play in early season in England.

Match of the week

Surrey’s meeting with Kent ended in a big win for the champions, by 10 wickets, but was a better game than that scoreline suggests. In the first innings, both team’s lower orders bailed out those higher up. The first five sessions were nip and tuck. But when Surrey lost their seventh wicket, they were almost 70 behind still but, as they tend to, they kept coming at Kent, and ended up posting a lead of 84. From there, they never looked back, opening up a decent buffer at the top of the Championship. A word for Nottinghamshire v Essex, too, which ended in a draw, but was seriously hard-fought.

Quote of the week

"Definitely, 100 per cent"

That was Leicestershire skipper Lewis Hill’s answer when asked if the 271 his team had set Worcestershire was enough. At the time, it seemed fair enough. It was the second evening, and 32 wickets had already fallen. The Foxes had a first-innings lead of 90, and were asking the Pears to chase the highest score of the match by close to 100 runs.

The pitch had seen some variable bounce. Alas, Hill was proved wrong, with excellent knocks from Adam Hose and Gareth Roderick helping Worcestershire to an extraordinary three-wicket win. Something is stirring at Leicester, on and off the pitch, but they need to develop a harder edge.