Ashes feast serves two undercooked teams

England need time to adjust to harsh light and bounce, but Australia’s last test was in January, writes Steve James.

In terms of preparations for an Ashes tour down under, the series in 2010-11 is often held up as the gold standard.

England played three firstclass matches on that trip – beating Western Australia and drawing with South Australia, when rain probably prevented another victory, before thrashing Australia A by 10 wickets in Hobart with a second-string attack (the main bowlers had been sent to Brisbane in readiness for the first test).

The match against a strong Australia A side, which included Phillip Hughes (it was seven years ago this week since he died so tragically), Usman Khawaja, Steve Smith and Tim Paine, was shown on television in Australia and England.

Andrew Strauss, the England captain, wrote in his tour diary that it sent out a ‘‘very strong message’’, with Ian Bell making 192, to add to two centuries from Strauss in the earlier matches. It was some statement.

It was little surprise that England went on to win that Ashes series 3-1, but you could argue that they did not start it that well, conceding a first-innings deficit of 221 at the Gabba. Strauss made a first-innings duck and could so easily have been out first ball of the second innings, surviving a mighty close leg-before shout, before going on to make a hundred, along with Alastair Cook’s monumental 235 not out and Jonathan Trott’s 135no, resulting in a draw.

That tour, however, seems to belong in a different age. Now bloated schedules and Covid-19 mean calendar space and decent warm-up opposition have become too hard to find.

England attempted to play three matches before their most recent tour in 2017-18 but, with Sheffield Shield matches going on at the same time, came up against tyros mainly. The result was that England were woefully underprepared for what was to come, prompting Trevor Bayliss, the head coach at the time, to say: ‘‘Australia and England should be getting together and having at least one match against the A team before each series. I know when Australia go to England there are similar questions asked.’’

At the time Bayliss would not have been thinking about England A (or the Lions, as they are now called) as opposition, but then he could never have envisaged that a pandemic would strike either. So it is that England have had to take their own opposition to Australia, trying to play (without those who were at the T20 World Cup) against the Lions in a 12-a-side, three-day match that is being scuppered by rain in Brisbane, before a four-day affair against them next week.

It is far from ideal, but then this debate about preparation has been raging for a long time. It was Duncan Fletcher who, as head coach between 1999 and 2007, first began playing more than 11 players in such fixtures, thus depriving them of first-class status, but arguing that it was more important for as many players as possible to be involved than some archaic notion of classification. Fletcher preferred his players to reach a test series a little underdone.

Cook had a different opinion in 2010-11, when Andy Flower was the England head coach.

‘‘Making these games 11-a-side first-class games has helped everyone,’’ Cook said. ‘‘Your firstclass record is at stake. When it’s a 13-a-side game you just think you have got your net in when you come off the field. This time by making it really clear it has helped us.’’

The key point is that Australia does appear to require more preparation than other countries. ‘‘The thing that always strikes you when you arrive in Australia is the light,’’ Strauss wrote. That light is harsher and brighter. The pitches bounce more than English players are used to, demanding mainly cross-batted shots early on before driving becomes easier once the ball

softens. A very different game is required.

Preparing for it is no exact science and we should never underestimate the resourcefulness of the modern player. Even before that 2010-11 trip England had done some intensive practice at Loughborough, using the ProBatter bowling machine, which has a real bowler’s run-up and delivery on a screen at the front. ‘‘No other team in the world had ProBatter, and it helped to add to the feeling that maybe we were slightly ahead of

the game for a change,’’ Strauss wrote.

It should be noted that Australia are also holding an internal match this week at the same ground at which England are now. Indeed, if anyone is worried about England’s preparations for the first test that starts on December 8 it is also worth glancing at Australia’s, given that they have played only two tests this year – in January — losing the series to a depleted India – compared with England’s 12. Australia were due to play Afghanistan this month but that was cancelled. England’s recent record in Australia is abysmal, having lost nine of their past 10 tests there. But with Ben Stokes returning there is more hope, and, as Shane Warne said recently: ‘‘No-one fears Australia any more. Coming to Australia, everyone used to go: ‘Oh, we’re going to have to be at our best to even compete.’ Now they just believe they can beat Australia – every side.’’ Even England? Not long until we find out.