England’s Ashes No3 will matter far less than keeping Ben Stokes firing

These thoughts recur in evaluating the squad that England named this week in quest of the Ashes this southern summer. Man for man, there is much to recommend it. It has a strong phalanx of batting; it has pace to burn; 10 of the 16 are in their twenties, making their hosts look positively senescent. Circumstances have spared them what would have been the selection howlers of choosing Chris Woakes and Jamie Overton.

Yet they must still be ready in good time. They still depend heavily, for leadership, batting, bowling and balance, on Ben Stokes, whose body is officially 34 years old but you can’t help thinking rather older on the inside – a strange mix of the seemingly superhuman then the suddenly very much not.

Stokes was at something near his bowling best in England this summer, then last seen on a cricket field with a right arm that appeared only tenuously attached to his body. He is the only team member to have made a hundred in Australia, but it was a dozen years ago. He has been “back in training” at Durham these past two weeks, which is simultaneously exciting and worrying, given his famously masochistic approach to practice.

England, too, seem leveraged to Stokes’s physique in their tendency to diminishing returns – they have won the first Test and lost the last in five of their previous six series. The full suite of five matches down under will stretch them accordingly, even if the nine-day turnarounds after the Perth and Brisbane Tests are more charitable than on previous visits.

All of which makes Ollie Pope’s succession as vice-captain by Harry Brook look prudent if not belated. Pope may be a little unlucky. He has always looked a pint in a quart pot at No3, and in Stokes’s stead at the toss like a Tom Cruise without his box to stand on.

Yet it’s hardly Pope’s fault that these are roles the team has thrust on him, and he has always shown willing. Still, Brook is not so much the coming man as the already arrived one. If he has charge of England on Boxing Day, don’t be surprised.

This leaves England with a TBA at first drop, where there have been few timelier ODI hundreds than Jacob Bethell’s bonny 110 at Southampton three weeks ago. Bazball’s golden child looks set to start at Perth Stadium on 21 November. His challenge will be steep. In Australia’s past 35 Tests, No3 batters in the opposition, including players of the stature of Cheteshwar Pujara, Kane Williamson and Dinesh Chandimal, have averaged 23. None have made centuries.

Then there is that fast-bowling attack: Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Matthew Potts. You will probably get tired during this series of the truism that you need speed to succeed in Australia – viz Harold Larwood, Frank Tyson, John Snow et al.

It is verifiable so far as it goes; the proviso is that you also need fitness. England brought Fred Trueman, Tyson, Brian Statham, Peter Loader and Trevor Bailey to Australia in 1958-59, and still lost four of five Tests.

One way of understanding the respective Ashes fortunes over the past decade is that Archer and Wood, the swiftest English bowlers of their generation, have managed to play precisely one Test match together, while the combination of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon has taken the field on 35 occasions.

In that, by the way, don’t overlook the instrumentality of Lyon. Since 2011, he has bowled an average of 250 deliveries in each of his 139 Tests – sometimes penetrative, always tidy, a welcome respite for his faster fellows, a reservoir of experience. How much Australia missed him in 2023.

Here, of course, is where England look weakest. No first-choice slow bowler has come to these shores with a record like 21-year-old Shoaib Bashir: 68 wickets in 19 Tests at 39 each; 19 further first-class wickets in 15 further matches at 83 each.

No, slow bowling has not routinely won Test matches in Australia. Equally, it is hard to do without. It is instructive to look back at England’s last phase of sustained Ashes success – the three consecutive series they won from 2009 and 2013.

It is common to recall these for the voluptuous swing of James Anderson, and in those 15 Tests he claimed 58 wickets at 31 each, with an economy rate of 3.15.

Yet the record of Graeme Swann, 55 wickets at less than 35 each with an economy rate of three, enhanced by handy tailend runs and sound fielding, stands up better than well. What England would give for him now.

Similar considerations, of course, also affect Australia. Like Stokes, Cummins is unlikely to bowl a ball in anger before the Perth Test, nursing an aching back.

Over the same period, a lot could change in their order, which in recent times has depended heavily on Steve Smith’s virtuoso stylings and the counterpunchings of Travis Head and Alex Carey.

Above all, perhaps, accidents will happen. Starting on Wednesday, Australia face 11 white-ball fixtures, against New Zealand and India, within five weeks; England have their own six against New Zealand upcoming. Woe the man who comes to harm; equally, some can be expected to advance their cases.

With an Ashes round the corner, we enter a phase of maximum suggestibility. This innings, that spell, an unexpected outcome, a sudden misfire – everything will have a context.

That’s another applicable line of Allen’s: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans”.

Photograph by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images