Injuries and form mean changes are necessary... so where do England turn?

JAMES COYNE AT EDGBASTON: England have fought hard in Jimmy Anderson's absence against the majestic Steve Smith, but the schedule does not help them as they seek to come back firing at Lord’s and beyond

Where do England go from here? They haven’t lost this first Test yet – and this pitch is so docile, they may well survive – but there’s no doubt that all this hard yakka will have sucked some wind out of their sails.

In the immediate term, the answer seems blindingly obvious – and he turned up at Edgbaston with a big grin on his face, a wide-brimmed sunhat and looking dapper in England whites for the first time.

Jofra Archer seems set to come in at Lord’s for Jimmy Anderson, to offer the cutting-edge that England need when the ball starts to get soft – as it so noticeably did at Edgbaston. After his IPL and World Cup experiences, few bowlers will have arrived in Test cricket better prepared for the limelight. But there’s a danger in expecting too much from him: we’ve seen during Archer’s brief ODI career that he’s arguably of more importance on flat wickets than green ones.

For all the pleasing tempo of this five days at Edgbaston, it bears repeating that there are five Tests across 47 days – the Tour de France is half as long – and it is hard to imagine that the Lord’s pace trio will play all four remaining Tests. Not when Archer and Chris Woakes have each played 11 high-octane World Cup matches this summer.

After 185 overs operating as a three-man seam attack, in which they were put to the sword by the majestic Steve Smith, England’s bowlers will come out of this match nursing rather more bruises than from most recent Tests at Edgbaston. Joe Root was clearly saving his bowlers’ legs as the lead spiralled past 300.

^{Jack Leach will be in contention for a recall for Lord's}

Australia, meanwhile, are in the luxurious position of having already rested two parts of the attack that blew England away in the last Ashes in Australia. Mitchell Starc could well play at Lord’s as their strike option to swing the ball, and create rough for Nathan Lyon to bowl into. Josh Hazlewood can come in for Peter Siddle at whatever juncture suits them. And that’s before we mention Michael Neser, who is the kind of swing bowler who could prosper on the kind of green pitch that was produced by Lord’s for the Ireland Test.

And England? Stuart Broad’s place in the attack looks more secure than for a long time. He’s bowling as quickly as he has for years, has removed David Warner twice already, and in Anderson’s absence is the attack leader. England need him more than ever.

It seems that Woakes not bowling on the first morning was to save his legs for a more important time. Woakes may not enjoy flat surfaces like this all that much, but at Lord’s he averages 9.75 with the ball and 68.50 with the bat. He will be a major part of the Lord’s strategy.

But England – and their bowling coach Chris Silverwood in particular – will be looking beyond just the second Test, when the matches start to pile up. It is no accident that all the major back-up seamers – Archer, Olly Stone, Sam Curran – were bowling out on the practice wickets (Archer showing off some left-arm somethings) before play and at lunch on the fourth day, and all of them had a stint as sub fielder.

Alas, there’s no round of County Championship cricket between now and August 18, which is after the second Test. So whatever happens, there will be some high-profile cricketers coming to a club ground near you. Archer is inked in to play for Sussex 2nd XI against Gloucestershire’s second-string at Woodmancote, in deepest and loveliest East Sussex. They’d better organise an overflow car park…

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If we accept that Archer, having been in “excruciating pain” during parts of the World Cup, was never in the running for this Test, then Stone, on a high after a successful debut in the Lord’s Test win over Ireland, must have been. He would have offered more pace through the air on a flat pitch, but it is useless to debate the issue now.

Stone and Curran at least have the advantage of having played and done well in that Test. The ECB say it is unlikely that Curran will be among the Surrey second-string that play Middlesex at LSE Ground, New Malden this week. Warwickshire have some 2nd XI T20 matches Stone could theoretically play in. But if these bowlers are to get a high-pressure run-out, it is likely to be in the T20 Blast, as Archer did the other night.

Sadly, that won’t be the case for Mark Wood, who has been ruled out for the rest of the season. Lewis Gregory, who was in the Lord’s Test squad, has missed the last couple of Blast games for Somerset through injury, and will need to plot his own comeback trail.

Anderson is a unique case – a 37-year-old physiological phenomenon. But he attempted to make his comeback from calf injury in a Test match, with no match practice beforehand. It seems unlikely that will be happening again for any seamer in this series, if at all possible.

Graham Thorpe, England’s batting coach, said that we had to trust a bowler of Anderson’s seniority on his own fitness.

“A guy who has played however many Test matches he has, you have to trust his view on it. I trusted his decision. It’s unfortunate that it happened, but I have no doubt that Jimmy, in his own head, thought he was 100 per cent fit.”

Lancashire have a few 2nd XI matches between now and Lord’s that Anderson might look at, though we have not yet learned the prognosis for his calf. England’s greatest fast bowler, at a club near you? That might put some money behind the bar…

Up to now, Moeen Ali has been able to compartmentalise his two disciplines: when his bowling was still developing at the start of his Test career, he was making runs like the top-order batsman he was. As his batting has gradually declined, he has kept improving as an off-spinner.

^{Jofra Archer is ready for a Test debut}

But, after his fateful leave in the first innings, he has been at far from at his best with the ball. After tea today, when Moeen would be expected to bowl from the City End, Root preferred to bowl himself for a prolonged spell. A merry hit in the Blast might actually a better way to restore Moeen’s confidence than sending him out to face the Australians again with Worcestershire on Wednesday.

England must be closer to dropping him for Jack Leach after this – if nothing else, left-arm spin seems to bother Smith more than any other type of bowling – but is Leach likely to run through a side on a docile pitch, good bowler though he is? There are no red-ball matches for Somerset or their 2nd XI until August 12, when England will have met up two days before the Lord’s Test. He never plays T20.

So again the situation betrays the madness of the English schedule, which places no first-class cricket for a month at the height of summer, except for four days at Cheltenham. And why do Gloucestershire play that perennial fixture in among all the T20? Because the Cheltenham Festival does well financially.

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Even the 2nd XI Championship is all but finished in a week’s time. This situation is not likely to improve next year, when: instead of keeping the Royal London One-Day Cup in its popular and successful early-season block, the ECB have shoved it alongside The Hundred in the prime of summer. How are the fringe Test players ever going to sneak in any relevant match practice? The answer seems to be that they’ll have to net more. But is that enough for fast bowlers?

Ashley Giles, England’s managing director of cricket, said before this Ashes that it was time to recalibrate the English game back towards red-ball cricket again. But there’s only so much that he, the selectors, the coaches and the players can do.

These are the country’s best professional cricketers. Your head tells you that they generally find a way – especially at home.

But once again we are left to reflect that the players are thrown out there, expected to do their best, after the administrators have done their worst.

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