Key events
In the meantime, we had a terrific Women’s Ashes Test over five days at Trent Bridge. The fourth day especially was a classic, with the result completed later. These are my Day 4 and 5 pieces if you want a sense of that.
Tim de Lisle wrote a good measured piece after all that, I thought.
Here’s some of the Edgbaston summing up filtered through England’s former capatain and current player.
So that means two changes: Josh Tongue in for Moeen Ali, four seamers for England, and Mitchell Starc in for Scott Boland, partly to give him a break after playing the WTC final and Edbgaston back to back, and partly because England lined him up with the bat.
It was always going to be what England would try. They partly got away with it, while other days they might not. Have to say I’m surprised by this line about Australia being surprised.
Teams
We finally have an Australian XI. We knew England’s yesterday.
Australia
David Warner
Usman Khawaja
Marnus Labuschagne
Steven Smith
Travis Head
Cameron Green
Alex Carey +
Mitchell Starc
Pat Cummins *
Nathan Lyon
Josh Hazlewood
England
Zak Crawley
Ben Duckett
Ollie Pope
Joe Root
Harry Brook
Ben Stokes *
Jonny Bairstow +
Stuart Broad
Ollie Robinson
Josh Tongue
James Anderson
England win the toss and will bowl
There we go! Batting last was the key to England’s outrageous successes over the last year. And bowling first on a cloudy morning on a green one could be a very useful thing as well.
Preamble
Geoff Lemon
Hello everybody and welcome to live OBO of day one of the second Ashes Test from Lord’s. Play should get under way at 11am local time (8pm AEST in Australia).
The dust has barely settled on the drama of Edgbaston and it has been a highly interesting week regarding the methods of England and the more conventional approach of the Australians. Apparently somebody is right and somebody is wrong, even though it was a match won by the second-barest of margins thanks to Australian captain Pat Cummins pulling the result out of the fire.
The second act promises more of the same contrast in styles, with the hosts backing in their methods and the tourists not convinced by the suggestion that England were the moral victors in Brum.
