Australia bargain big three breakup as Mitchell Starc falls behind
Australia have traded off the breakup of the fast bowling "big three" by selling Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood the idea that spreading the workload among more pacemen will extend their careers, with the captain Tim Paine declaring his team have been "way too reliant" on them.
James Pattinson is guaranteed to play in the opening Ashes Test at Edgbaston and Peter Siddle is also strongly in contention, meaning Starc looks certain to miss out as he continues his transition from ODI lines and lengths to the demands of Test matches, while Hazlewood is also 50/50. Only Cummins is safe in the team of the three bowlers who dominated England in Australia in 2017-18.
Paine admitted that Starc, Hazlewood and Cummins needed to be convinced of the merits of not simply choosing them to play together on the basis they are the three senior bowlers, all with lofty and thus lucrative positions on the Cricket Australia contract list. Added to the unhappy recent history of Australia struggling to adapt to English conditions, Paine said that the team needed to be more selective in how they used the three men who have effectively been joint spearheads of the attack since 2015.
"We've spoken about it to the bowlers. As JL [the coach Justin Langer] said, we're going to pick the team we think is going to win each Test match given the conditions we get when we arrive at those venues and the bowlers are across that," Paine said. "I think that's a great thing for our team - to have a really strong mix of fast bowlers who can all play in different conditions. But as we've said to the fast bowlers, it's actually a great thing for them as well because we can now prolong their careers for a few years.
"The last two or three years, we've been way too reliant on Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood - they've played a lot of Tests and subsequently picked up lots of niggly injuries along the way. It's a positive for all those guys. Another one is Peter Siddle, he can get another 12 months of Test cricket if we keep picking guys for the conditions. That's the way we've sold it to them. It's a great thing for the team but it's also a great thing for them individually."
While Cummins and Hazlewood have both spoken supportively in public of the move, nothing has been heard yet from Starc, who has been working assiduously to move from World Cup to Ashes mode. Should Australia utilise their bowling resources more broadly and effectively, the outcome will be critical not only to the Ashes, but how the team fares in the inaugural Test World Championship over the next two years. Paine added that Starc and Pattinson were seen as similarly hostile, attacking options, with holding bowlers required in support.
"At the moment we probably are looking at them in a similar role and we want to make sure we get that combination right and the bowlers we pick are complementing each other," he said. "If conditions are right for both of those two, we think to play together they certainly will. It's not something we've said 'we're only playing him [or] we're only playing him'. We're just making sure we get the right combination and have all bases covered."
The brown-tinged Edgbaston pitch was something of a surprise to Paine at first glance, but he reasoned that it would still provide assistance to seamers, aided by the overhead conditions that will intersperse rain with cloud cover for the majority of the Test match if forecasts prove accurate. To that end, Paine suggested that Australia's months of work on combating the moving ball with the bat would pay dividends.
"The pitch looked a bit different. I must admit I was expecting a bit of a green top - it's certainly a different colour than I expected but there is a thick covering of grass on it," Paine said. "Given there's been a lot of rain, and the overcast here, I think the Dukes ball is going to swing around and it looks like, if anything, there might be a bit more pace in it than I was expecting, which again might suit us.
"There's no doubt when the ball moves it's difficult for even the very best of batsmen. It's about being really clear on what you're actually trying to achieve and the plan you've got as a batter. And it's having the courage to walk out into the middle, under pressure in a Test match, and stick to that or execute it. We haven't been reinventing the wheel on batting, we've just been trying to be really clear in exactly how we want to play and now it's about sticking to that under pressure."
At least some of that pressure will be in the form of concerted booing from English crowds, something that the England batsman Joe Denly did not exactly discourage on Tuesday. However Paine said that after plenty of thought, the Australians would do their best to channel the noise and energy radiating off the crowd into a positive force, no matter what is hurled from the Eric Hollies Stand and elsewhere.
"We've touched on it, of course we've touched on it. We know what to expect here in England and we're looking to embrace it," Paine said. "We think it's part of international cricket in England and it's something if we embrace you can have great memories. We're talking about it that way, trying to use it as energy and use it in a positive manner. We know what's coming, it's part and parcel. We need to be strong enough to handle it.
"We've spoken about that, backing each other up and being a really tight group which is no different to anywhere else but here it can be more important on long tours. Regardless of where it is, obviously we want to get off to a good start in the Ashes. It's really important that you get some momentum early in a big series like this. We haven't spoken about whether Edgbaston is a fortress for them, because that's irrelevant. It's about being clear on what we want to do, both individually and as a team.
"If we can be really clear, come out and execute well, it doesn't matter if we play at Edgbaston or on the moon, we think our best cricket is good enough."
One cricketer conspicuous by his absence from the pre-series noise has been Nathan Lyon, who spoke brutishly of "ending a few careers" before the previous Ashes series, even as he backed it up by dominating England with his off breaks. "Gazza's probably the best spin bowler in the world and he's proven that now over a long period of time," Paine said.
"No doubt he has flown under the radar a little bit, probably because he didn't play much in the World Cup. I'm sure he's being spoken about quite a lot in their change room and they'll be coming up with plans on how to try and counter Nathan. As we've seen the last three or four years in any conditions, he's a real handful and he's going to be a huge asset for us in this series."