A thrilling Ashes opener ended with Australia pipping England by two wickets at Edgbaston to take a 1-0 series lead to Lord's; watch the second Ashes Test, live on Sky Sports Cricket from Wednesday
Saturday 24 June 2023 07:05, UK
With England 1-0 down in The Ashes following a thrilling two-wicket defeat to Australia in the series-opener at Edgbaston, former England batter and Sky Sports pundit Mark Butcher says winning must be the priority, not just entertainment, as the hosts look to get back into the series...
You go into every series optimistic. That was certainly the case going into this Ashes series, that groundswell of feel-good factor, given the way that England have played… and then, all of a sudden, you get that reversal in terms of the result at Edgbaston.
Amazing viewing though it was, one of the reasons why I was disappointed at the back end of the Test match was because, this is Ashes cricket - it's about winning, and that's the end of it.
There has been a lot of chatter in the aftermath of the first Test. Ricky Ponting has, of course, put the needle in - just give him, or any Australian great, the opportunity to do so and they will take it.
I spent an enormous amount of my career, nearly all of it in fact, getting beaten by Australian teams with no mercy. So the idea that you would almost offer up some sort of spectacle for people, with the result not mattering too much, it doesn't sit very well with me.
England are 1-0 down and, add that to the injury suffered by Jack Leach before the series, and the numerous fast bowlers they have missing, suddenly the whole conversation becomes very different.
I don't expect England to go about things any differently at Lord's, though I think they may be a little chastened by what happened at Edgbaston.
I doubt that they would admit that publicly, but I think they may be a little wiser after the event and adopt a slightly more hard-nosed approach.
I think the temperature might go up a little bit on the field, from the players on both sides, for the second Test.
While they won't take any of the criticisms in the press personally - the media make more of a thing of it than the players ever do - I think there's a realisation of what's at stake now, what has always been at stake with the Ashes.
Jimmy Anderson has also come out and been critical of the pitch prepared for the first Test. Conditions certainly didn't offer him, or any of the seamers, a great deal.
He didn't have his best game, but Jimmy is a master in all conditions nowadays, so it may have been a little bit of rust after his groin injury.
He has worked unbelievably hard to be able to make something happen even in the flattest conditions and you very rarely hear him moan about surfaces. So that's interesting in itself, the fact that he's decided to go public about what he thought.
If you're the Australian side, you might look at that and think 'we've got them rattled here'.
Before the series started, the talk was about small boundaries and England asking for flat pitches to allow them to play the style of cricket they wanted to.
Now, if their senior bowler is going 'hang on, I'm not very happy with that', then there's a schism there isn't there? That would be music to the ears of the Australian team.
It also poses England with a bit of a quandary because, the better the weather we're having at the moment, the less life there will be in the pitches, due to the dryness of the surfaces. It means that you're going to need more in the way of spin and extreme pace.
England's problems with extreme pace are well documented, you've got injuries all over the place - Jofra Archer out before the series even started, Olly Stone injured and we're not entirely sure about Mark Wood's status at the moment.
And there's a massive problem in the spin department, to the point where they had to - though I didn't necessarily think that they did - look outside of the people that are playing the red-ball game in order to bring Moeen Ali back in.
With him and that spinning finger now a concern, England might be tempted to play four seamers at Lord's, but I don't think they should.
Put it this way, if Leach hadn't got injured, he would play. Even if you think the pitch is going to be flat, you're going to be out there for a long time - and you don't want your seamers to be doing an enormous amount of donkey work.
Plus, if you want Joe Root to essentially play as an all-rounder, are you adding to his workload so much that he then becomes less effective as your best batter? And that leads us on to another conversation about Jonny Bairstow and keeping wicket as well.
I think you're going to have to pick a spin bowler, and they've gone for the 'Bazball' selection of 18-year-old Rehan Ahmed, adding him to the squad.
He's going to bowl wicket-taking deliveries, and he bowls more googlies than he does leg-spinners, so you'll still have the option of turning the ball away from the Australian left-handers. He can also give it a slog down at number eight, which is basically what they asked Mo to do anyway.
It's a tough place for England to be in. Australia turning up at Lord's, already 1-0 up, is huge for them. It has always been a difficult venue for England against Australia… don't ask me why, but it just has.
And they've got that lead without their two best batsmen, Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith, making any runs at all. At the minute, they're feeling pretty good about life.
But, if we're going for good vibes, Australia reversed things at Edgbaston - where England would expect to win, no matter who they're playing - and so there's no reason why England can't turn the tide and do exactly the same at Lord's.
Whatever happens, I'm sure it will be a lot of fun and another great watch. But, while the casual observer might love the fact that there was incredible entertainment at Edgbaston, the bottom line is winning the Ashes is the most important thing.
Let's hope things fall into place for England to be able to level up the series with a victory.
Watch the second men's Ashes Test, from Lord's, live on Sky Sports Cricket from Wednesday. Build-up begins at 10am ahead of the toss at 10.30am and then an 11am start.
