Few England players leave Australia with reputations enhanced - Mark Wood does

As Mark Wood walked from the field, nudged forward by his teammates, a broad grin on his face and holding the pink ball aloft under leaden skies, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was a game staged in front of a welcoming English crowd. It takes a special feat for an Australian one to be chanting an Englishman’s name instead.

And it was a special feat. Career-best figures of six for 37, in Wood’s first day-night Test, to bowl Australia out for 155, their lowest of the series, was an achievement which gave England their first realistic opportunity of a win. Special indeed. However, despite all this, despite the smile and the enthusiasm which comes naturally to Wood (and despite England’s ability to capitalise on that opportunity too, mind), there was a disappointment too.

This shouldn’t have been Wood’s first pink-ball Test. England’s best bowling figures in this series shouldn’t have come in the last Test when the Ashes were long gone. The fields set and the clarity of thought should not have materialised only at this late stage. England’s decision to rest Wood for the second Ashes Test, a day-nighter in Adelaide, was one which left most Australians watching on just as staggered as Wood himself.

“You know what we like?” asked the Australian broadcaster Mark Howard, shortly following Wood’s six-wicket haul. “We like it when the English have a go a bit. [Ian] Botham, [Darren] Gough and now Mark Wood, he’s such a heart and soul man.”

Now it’s not as though England should be selecting players based on their perceived intent, or their enthusiasm, and especially not to appease the sensibilities of the Australians looking on. But these comments don’t come from nowhere; the same sentiments, also infused with disbelief, were expressed when Stuart Broad, whose record bowling to Australian opener David Warner is beyond superb, was not selected in the first Test in Brisbane. These comments come from the perspective of who Australia would rather not have to face.

Wood, following his Adelaide omission, could hardly hide his disappointment. “I was as fit as [Woakes] and [Robinson] were for the Adelaide game,” the Durham fast bowler told the BBC’s Test Match Special, describing the readiness of those England seamers who had played in Brisbane. He had been advised by his coach and captain that his omission was down to it being a “long series”, and that it would give England “a chance to keep you fresh for the upcoming games.”

All well and good but this theory has since gone out of the window considering that Wood has now played three back-to-back Tests, his best and last culminating in a nine-wicket haul. “Mark [Wood] will play a pivotal role in this series,” Root said after England had gone one-nil down already. England may not have won an Ashes series in Australia after losing the first Test since 1954 but they have never done so from 2-0 down. Instead, Wood has now bowled more overs than any other England bowler in this series but more than half of these have come after the Ashes had already been decided.

It’s not just the absence of opportunities to get on the park, either, which have hindered Wood, but the tactics deployed when he’s on it too. After some searing spells in Sydney, for only scant reward, Wood was widely hailed as the “unluckiest” bowler in the series, the man who “deserved” good figures more than anyone else. England set conventional short ball traps but Australia didn’t fall for them; Wood tried fuller but the faster they came the harder they went. By Hobart, however, England finally got more adventurous. They took some risks.

Yes, there were fielders stationed on the leg-side boundary and Wood’s short-ball barrage forced some down their throats. However, it was the short, straighter ones, where the batsmen had nowhere to hide, that really did the trick. The tickles through to the keeper as they hopped back in startled alarm trying to tuck it down leg, or the one that popped up into Ollie Pope’s hand at short square leg. Throughout this series, Australia have had a man stationed where Pope was, and frequently one at leg slip too, as they’ve gone hunting for wickets, taking risks, conceding runs but getting rewards. England have not.

Of course, a cartel of fast bowlers, as Australia like to term them, is helpful. And how much Wood would have enjoyed a Jofra Archer or Olly Stone by his side. But he didn’t have them and too often this series England have tried to deploy others to masquerade in their roles; the effort required of Ben Stokes to bowl a short ball barrage in the Adelaide Test ran him into the ground. It’s no coincidence he suffered a side strain shortly after.

If Wood deserves one criticism it is that he didn’t stand up for himself, insist on his fields and bowl to his strengths rather than England’s ill-conceived plans earlier. When he did, he was rewarded. Wood’s six-for, on a pitch built for seamers, was a rare ray of sunshine on another dark day for England’s Test tourists. Few England players come away from this series with their reputation enhanced; Wood does.

How the Cameron Green effect turned the tables on England

By Tim Wigmore

In Ashes history, England have had a solitary persistent advantage over Australia: their all-rounders. While Australia have struggled to find players to balance their team over the last 50 years, Ian Botham, Andrew Flintoff, Ben Stokes and Tony Greig have all played crucial roles in Ashes triumphs.

The few slivers of English optimism for the 2021/22 Ashes series were based on the hope that, with Stokes returning, the pattern could be extended. An all-rounder has indeed been one of the leading players in the 2021/22 Ashes - only, it has been Australia’s.

When Stokes pulled Mitchell Starc to deep square leg on the third evening in Hobart, it meant that he ended the series with a batting average of 23.6, to go with 71.5 with the ball. Green leaves his maiden Ashes series with a batting average of 32.6 augmented by 13 wickets at just 15.8 apiece. These performances have vindicated former Australian captain Greg Chappell's assessment that Green is “the next superstar of Australian cricket”.

The greatest excitement around Green has centered on his batting: he has a first-class average of 50, and has made eight centuries - including four above 150 - in 30 Sheffield Shield matches. While a tendency to get trapped on his front pad undermined his start to the series, Green hit a brace of 70s, both after Australia had suffered batting collapses, in the last two Tests, showing a cocktail of power driving and good judgement outside off stump.

Yet the real surprise of Green’s Ashes campaign was that, after not taking a wicket in his first four Tests against India last year, his greatest impact has been with the ball. Taking England’s first three wickets in Hobart - Rory Burns and Dawid Malan edging onto their stumps, and Zak Crawley edging a fuller ball behind - was in keeping with Green’s bowling contribution all series. He has relished bowling to Joe Root, dismissing him twice, and claimed 11 top-seven batsmen this series. Against left or right-handers, with the new ball or the old, Green has provided an unrelenting threat.

Except against the West Indies in the 1980s, fourth seamers traditionally provide the top order a little relief. But after being free from a stress fracture for a year, the challenge facing Green has resembled facing his captain, Pat Cummins.

From his steepling 6ft 5in height, Green has bowled at an average of 86mph this series - the fastest of any England bowler bar Mark Wood. Compared to against India last year, he has pared back his method. Like Cummins, he has eschewed chasing swing and targeting the stumps to focus on unerring command of line and length: 66 per cent of his deliveries against England were in the line just outside off stump, nine per cent more than against India. Green imitates Cummins in varying his release point at the crease - often delivering the ball from wider to create an angle that induces batsmen to play, which was notably successful against Root - and relying on a scintilla of seam movement.

It adds up to a wonderful, repeatable method - one that does not rely on help from the pitch, or swinging the ball prodigiously. Instead, Green’s template ensures that he gives his skipper control: even though he was normally used when the Kookaburra ball was older and had gone soft, Green yielded just 2.5 runs an over during this series.

While Green has balanced Australia's side, in a sense Stokes's return imbalanced England. In Brisbane, Stokes was selected as fourth seamer when he was not yet match-fit. But a belief that England had no need to pick five seamers meant that Jack Leach was preferred to Stuart Broad. Not helped by being asked to bowl short by Root, by the final Test Stokes was unable to bowl at all.

English sport has a tendency to believe in the power of all-action sporting messiahs; seldom have they been more successful than Stokes during his extraordinary summer of 2019. The allure that his return could galvanise the side down under was inescapable.

Yet the task that Stokes faced was simply too great for a man arriving in Australia after an extended break from the game, having only played a solitary first-class game - which wasn’t even a Test - in the previous 10 months. The strain that he has put on his body means that Hobart might have provided a glimpse of Stokes' future as a Test cricketer - as a batsman who can occasionally bowl, rather than a genuine all-rounder. It is not fanciful to ask whether, if his bowling duties are scaled back, Stokes could even become England’s new No 3.

Yet while there is uncertainty over what lies ahead for Stokes the Test cricketer, for Green - and Australia - the outlook seems altogether simpler. For all the challenges that lie ahead to his technique and body, Green offers Australia the tantalising prospect of balancing their Test side more than any player since Keith Miller, allowing them to select an extra bowler without compromising on their batting.

That would amount to a major boon for Australia's Ashes prospects in the next decade. Yet with Green complementing an already outstanding bowling attack, Australia's ambitions should be altogether greater than beating England at home and away: building a side to return to the summit of the Test game and win the World Test Championship.