Dave Tickner is lumping on the hosts to maintain their fine record at the Gabba despite some head-scratchers from the selectors.
A couple of weeks ago, 5/6 for Australia to win the first Test would have been an absolute no-brainer mortgage job. They haven’t lost in Brisbane since the 1980s, and in 28 Tests since a nine-wicket defeat to an all-time great West Indies side Australia have won 21 and drawn seven.
And the draws are getting less common. It’s 13 wins and two draws in the last 15, and those 13 include victory margins of an innings and 156 runs, and innings and 65 runs, an innings and 40 runs, 381 runs, 379 runs, 277 runs, 208 runs, 149 runs, and nine wickets.
But there’s also a reason why 5/6 is available now rather than two weeks ago. For genuinely inexplicable reasons, Australia have entered full panic ahead of a series they really ought to win comfortably.
Their selectors have lost both their nerve and their minds. It’s one thing to go back to Shaun Marsh, quite another to double-down on that by picking Tim Paine as keeper.
Marsh’s selection suggests uncertainty, unease and the comfort of the familiar, even if that familiarity is proven failure at this level. It should definitely provide succour for England, because it all points to an Australian camp less confident than it ought to be. As much as anything, opting for a pure batsman at number six places huge pressure on a brilliant yet fragile three-man pace attack.
The decision to jettison Matt Renshaw after a dodgy start to the Sheffield Shield season is also revealing; were Australia feeling good about themselves, Renshaw’s exemplary efforts last summer would have made his retention a certainty.
The selection of Paine, though, is absolutely astonishing. He has kept wicket in three Sheffield Shield games in the last two years. He couldn’t get in Tasmania’s side this season until parachuted into the most recent game as a specialist batsman. It suggests full-blown panic.
The other thing that’s happened in the last couple of weeks has been the weather. It’s been wet in Brisbane, and, although it’s likely to clear up before the actual Test there is no doubt that England’s bowlers will be happy about any green tinge to the wicket. Especially James Anderson, who averages 90 in three Queensland Tests.
And yet…
While all of this is good news for England, they will still have James Vince at number three. They still have to hit the ground running after inadequate preparation in very different conditions. They still have six players about to play their first overseas Ashes Test.
I still don’t see any hope for the draw – the weather, if anything, counting against that outcome given the forecast is clear for the final four days – and therefore can’t pass up Australia at the price. The price now puts Australia winning or not winning in pick ‘em territory; that’s simply not the case for me in any Test at Brisbane regardless of selectorial silliness.
News from the England camp suggesting that Moeen Ali, rather than Jonny Bairstow, is to take Ben Stokes’ spot in the order at number six means I’m taking a punt on him at 16/1 to be England’s top batsman.
He’s got a better Test batting record than three of the five men batting ahead of him and that price is perfectly fine if Moeen bats seven and flat-out wrong if he’s in the top six.
Moeen made four Test centuries in 2016, and even in a quieter 2017 summer still made scores of 87, 75 not out and 84. Scored almost 300 runs at an average nudging 37 despite batting at eight and nine in the 2015 series, and has been working hard on a supposed vulnerability against the short ball.
In the equivalent Australian market, I’m going even more speculative with a price that seems way too generous.
Australia, like England, have vulnerabilities throughout their top six. Unlike England, that weakness continues at seven with Paine. Mitchell Starc will bat eight, and can be backed at 66/1 to top-score in the innings.
Frankly, this is a bet I’d happily have in every innings of the series with some confidence it would come off at least once. The price is wrong just on the simplest measure: Starc has top-scored twice for Australia in 55 innings. But his chance is surely greater here than even those stats suggest. Only 17 of those 55 have been as high as eight in the order, and almost none in a weaker overall batting side than this one.
Starc has passed 50 nine times in those 55 innings – a fine ratio from a specialist bowler - Australia’s collapsible batting line-up means it may not even need a 50 to top-score if things go wrong batting first on a helpful, first-day pitch. Going back to the last Ashes series, Australia have been bowled out for 136, 60, 161, 106, 183, 160, 85, 161,112 and 137 in the space of 26 Tests. Anything like that and Starc is right in it. Think back four years, and Australia were 132-6 on the opening day of the series before Brad Haddin and another Mitchell, Johnson, saved the Aussies.
After a couple of speculative punts, let’s return to something a bit more reliable. We’ve already got Josh Hazlewood onside in our outright top bowler preview, but it’s worth going in again in the first innings here at 5/2.
He’s got a better record than Starc at the Gabba – albeit not by much – and the rain that offers hope to England with the ball should also play right into Hazlewood’s hands.
If conditions are in any way bowler friendly, then the English techniques look far more vulnerable to Hazlewood’s Glenn McGrath tribute act than Starc’s Johnson impressions.
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Posted at 0745 GMT on 21/11/17.