Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
From left: England’s captain Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Rory Burns and Mark Wood.
From left: England’s captain Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Rory Burns and Mark Wood. Photograph: AP and Getty Images
From left: England’s captain Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Rory Burns and Mark Wood. Photograph: AP and Getty Images

Time to stand tall for Ashes: Root, Stokes, Burns and Wood can be key

This article is more than 5 years old

Joe Root and Ben Stokes are more important than ever for England this summer while Rory Burns and Mark Wood may also step up

Joe Root

“Cut off the head and the rest will follow” was a phrase often used in the dressing room of the great West Indies sides of the 80s. Their fast bowlers would make a point of targeting the opposition captain in the (usually justified) expectation that this would cause maximum distress. On this tour they managed this most successfully. After two Tests Joe Root had scored 55 runs. In Antigua the England captain received two brutish deliveries, which he could do little about. Job done. Series won.

Root, by an increasingly disturbing margin, is England’s best batsman. He will also be captain for the Ashes series and no doubt the Australians, too, will target him. His runs are more important to England than his captaincy, which is not a veiled suggestion to get rid of him but a reminder that his extra responsibilities should never cause him to neglect his own game.

He is a conscientious, hands-on captain and there is a danger that he tries to do too much. Trevor Bayliss is clearly supportive and quite candid: “I think he will be the first to admit he is not the finished article,” says the England coach. “But I can see improvements since he started and more confidence in making decisions and talking to the guys. He is growing all the time. He will just get better.” The more runs he scores, the better he will be.

The Spin: sign up and get our weekly cricket email.

Ben Stokes

Stokes is the other obvious key man in the Ashes. His absence last time scuppered England’s campaign before it started. His runs and wickets are important but in Australia especially being denied his competitive instincts on the field was even more critical. Once more Bayliss emphasised why after the series in the West Indies: “He will not back down from anything.”

This is a mild-mannered England side, which can be considered a virtue, and they aim to play the game properly, as outlined by Moeen Ali when musing about the Shannon Gabriel incident: “We want people to be attracted to the game. Put the mics up – it doesn’t have to be swearing. Keep it funny. There’s brilliant ways to sledge. Just don’t go personal. It’s time for people to behave themselves.” It’s hard to argue with that but, if it gets feisty against the Australians – and it often does – Stokes’s presence on the field will be welcome.

The encouraging aspect of this tour – so far – is that his body has survived the rigours of bowling more overs than expected and he has bowled well with hostility. There were also signs that he is rediscovering how to take the attack to the opposition bowlers, which is when he can cause havoc. It is not necessarily to England’s benefit for Stokes to bat too responsibly. A random yet striking statistic from the series, given that England line up with so many of their one-day cavaliers: England hit four sixes, West Indies 24.

Rory Burns

One or two of the non-established players will have to kick on if England are to prevail this summer and Rory Burns falls into that category. At the moment his figures are no better than those of his recent predecessors: 300 Test runs at 25.00 in six Tests. A reminder on behalf of the top-order fraternity of batsmen may be worthwhile here: far more often than not, opening against a brand new hard ball is the toughest place to bat. It is no coincidence that among England’s established batsmen no one wants to bat at No 3 or above and Root may be the only one capable of doing so.

The selectors will soon be monitoring the County Championship closely but on 5 and 11 April, when the first two rounds commence, life will be far from straightforward for England’s opening batsmen. When the ball is moving extravagantly the temptation is to have a swing and hope for the best, a strategy that seldom works at Test level. In fact in 2019 the championship fixture list actually includes some matches in the summer (primarily because of the World Cup). But in 2020 those matches will revert to the extremities of the season.

Aspiring young batsmen will increasingly spurn the challenges of opening the batting. “I want to be at No 5 and smash sixes in June, July and August in the Blast and the Hundred.” For reasons of self-preservation the best players do not want to open. So maybe we should be grateful for Burns and his ilk, a selfless, diminishing band.

Mark Wood

Mark Wood has suddenly become England’s Ashes wildcard. There is no way he will play all five Tests but there is the possibility he could be drafted in on pitches that have some pace (sadly the number of those is decreasing but this is still a possibility at Old Trafford and, perhaps, Edgbaston).

The England camp will be anxious to establish that those 50 balls on a breezy Sunday in St Lucia were not Wood’s Bob Beamon moment, equivalent to the leap with which the American broke the world long jump record by 55cm at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. They need to see Wood bowl at the same pace on a regular basis. If he can do that with sufficient accuracy, he will most definitely be in the frame.

Wood has an endearing passion, which is to bowl fast even though his body often tells him not to. He has shunned the easy route, which would be to opt for a career as a T20 specialist, required to bowl no more than 24 legal deliveries a match. He wants to bowl fast in Test cricket. It is a brave choice.

But speed is remembered more than figures. Frank Tyson played in only 17 Tests for England yet his name still reverberates when discussing fast bowlers. One series – in Australia in 1954-55 – was enough to make him a cricketing immortal, who hounded the Aussies to defeat through sheer pace. How Wood would love to do the same.

Comments (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

Most viewed

Most viewed