‘No excuses’: England begin Ashes assault as Australia prepares to name 15 for Perth

5 hours ago 4

England’s Ashes challengers will start arriving in Perth on Monday with “no excuses” for failure in their mission to regain the urn from an Australian side that will be missing captain Pat Cummins for at least the first Test.

Australia’s selectors will finalise their chosen group over the next two days, before the squad is announced in mid-week. It is expected to include 15 players, with Cummins also to travel to Perth as he builds up his bowling loads after a back injury.

Pat Cummins and Ben Stokes with a replica of the Ashes urn.

Portents for English success have not exactly flowed during a white-ball prelude in New Zealand, where the ODI team was swept 3-0 and none of Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Duckett or Jamie Smith could trouble the Black Caps for long.

Head coach Brendon McCullum has insisted that those games, which did showcase some swift spells from Jofra Archer in particular, will be helpful in the long run to the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney in January.

“No I don’t envisage that,” McCullum retorted when asked if a trio of poor batting displays would affect the confidence of the Test team. “It’s a different form of the game and it’s a completely different kind of challenge that we’re going to be confronted with as well.

“Sometimes the process that you go through in regards to batting doesn’t necessarily translate to runs but the game can come in time. That’s what we’re holding on to, anyway. Jamie Smith, Joe Root and Ben Duckett, they’ll be better for the run, too. They’ve marked centre a few times and gone through the process.

“I’m sure they’ll be better for it with the prep that we’ve had with the other Test guys who’ve been here for a while, too, we’ll have no excuses come Australia.”

England were 6-56, 5-81 and 7-102 on seaming pitches in the three games in New Zealand, struggling to find the right balance between attack and defence against the moving ball. White ball members of the Ashes squad get a week to themselves, either in New Zealand or on Australia’s east coast, before convening in Perth next week.

In the meantime, a group of Test players including Zak Crawley, Mark Wood and Ollie Pope will arrive Monday and start training in Perth this week alongside the England Lions squad mentored by Andrew Flintoff. England’s captain Ben Stokes is currently visiting family in New Zealand and will arrive in Perth a few days later.

“We’re incredibly respectful of the challenge Australia is going to present us and we know how hard that tour is going to be,” McCullum said. “It’s going to require a team to stay together right throughout, to be as strong as we can to try and block out any of the outside noise.

“I think when we do come across the trickier conditions in Australia and Test cricket, we have a pretty good understanding of how we’re going to go about it. It doesn’t guarantee us anything, but it gives us a level of confidence going into that series.”

England’s only warm-up game will be a three-day affair against the Lions at Lilac Hill in Perth. The tourists have been denied access to the WACA Ground for centre wicket training, a luxury afforded to India before their first-up victory in Perth last summer.

The 15-man Australian squad will be designed to cover two possible team configurations depending on how much Cameron Green can bowl. If he can shoulder a fuller complement of overs, there is the likelihood of a complementary opening partner for Usman Khawaja, with Marnus Labuschagne returning at number three.

However, if Green is not yet fit to bowl that much, room will need to be found for Beau Webster, meaning Labuschagne would more than likely open with Khawaja.

Either way, the need for all-round back-up is clearer than ever, given that Australia can ill-afford another injury to their front-line fast men Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc or Scott Boland while Cummins gets back up to speed.

“First player picked [should be] an all-rounder, I think,” Hazlewood said.

“Going back to those 20-odd Test matches we played with no all-rounder, they were hard yards.

“So if [they] can be in the team, be it bowling, Greeny is obviously an outstanding player, Beau has done great for us whenever he’s played. The more the merrier, I say. They can bowl as much as they want.

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