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The teams: no Doggett
England stick with the XI they announced in advance, so Jacob Bethell replaces Ollie Pope – who was giving him some throwdwons this morning, so no hard feelings. Jofra Archer is injured, so Gus Atkinson comes back. Graeme Swann and Alastair Cook feel that, with some grass on the pitch, England may regret not picking Matthew Potts, who pitches it up more than their other seamers.
Australia leave out Brendan Doggett, preferring Michael Neser, who did so well in Brisbane, and Jhye Richardson, who returns from four years of bad luck with injuries. Smith replaces Josh Inglis, Cam Green is demoted to No 7, and there’s no spinner, which may have been one more reason why Stokes has asked Australia to bat first and bowl last.
Australia 1 Head, 2 Weatherald, 3 Labuschagne, 4 Smith (capt), 5 Khawaja, 6 Carey (wkt), 7 Green, 8 Starc, 9 Neser, 10 Richardson, 11 Boland.
England 1 Crawley, 2 Duckett, 3 Bethell, 4 Root, 5 Brook, 6 Stokes (capt), 7 Smith (wkt), 8 Jacks, 9 Atkinson, 10 Carse, 11 Tongue.
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Toss: England win and elect to bowl
It’s a grey day, so Ben Stokes has put Australia in to bat. Steve Smith says he would have done the same. As it is, he has to bowl last with no spinner.
Ben Stokes and Brendan McCullum talk during the warmup. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAPShare
Updated at 18.06 EST
Pre-match reading (2)
It’s Melbourne, it’s Boxing Day, it’s a crowd three times the size of Lord’s, and it’s seen some spectacular cricket. Andy Martin picks five Ashes Boxing Days to remember, all from the past 40 years, and not all going Australia’s way.
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The next email starts with a line I’m not used to seeing. “Dead right Tim,” says Dean Kinsella. “I haven’t been able to follow the previous 3 tests all that closely for various reasons (perhaps not a bad thing), but ready for this game. So it’s a clean slate for me. Two matches of my absolute favourite sport to come.”
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Pre-match reading
Some players are hoarders, others are not. Shane Warne, it turns out, was a secret hoarder, and some of his stuff is now on display at the MCG. Jim Wallace, of this parish, has had a preview.
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The first email of the day has landed. “Hope you had/are still having a super Christmas,” says Andrew Benton. Thanks, it’s been very nice, hope yours has too. And everyone’s!
“I can see a scenario,” he goes on, “in which Rob Key and Brendan McCullum are advising the England players to be laid back and chill, and Ben Stokes is quietly telling everyone they need to work 24/7 on everything at all times in order to have a good chance of winning. Given the whole point of the Bazball style was to win the Ashes as McCullum and Stokes said many times over the years, why have the Key/McCullum heads not yet rolled? Australia have been amazing, but you’d sort of expect that.”
Heads don’t usually roll during the series, do they? That’s one of the ways in which cricket still keeps its distance from football. But as you say, it’s been very interesting to hear Stokes and McCullum singing from different hymn sheets. If only one of them gets to stay, you’d expect it to be Stokes. But McCullum has an assignment straight after this series – the WT20 in the subcontinent – so maybe his fate, like Joe Root’s as captain four years ago, will be decided at the end of the next chapter.
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Updated at 17.40 EST
Preamble
So here it is … Merry Christmas! Everybody’s having fun (except perhaps Ben Duckett). Look to the future now, it’s only just begun.
Does Sir Geoffrey always tell you that the old ways are the best? Then he’s up and rock’n’ – hang on, there’s no way of making that work. Much like being in charge of an England Test team in Australia if your name is not Andrew.
Anyway, here’s a quiz question. Of all the losing squads England have sent on an Ashes tour this century, which one has done least badly? Using a simple yardstick: the gap between their average score and Australia’s.
Look away now if you want a minute to think about this. But you’ve probably guessed where I’m going with it. Yes, the answer is … Ben Stokes’ brave boys from 2025-26.
They’re averaging 258 per completed innings (actually, all their innings have been completed – for some reason, not even Stokes has been inclined to declare). The Aussies have made 372 per completed innings – only four of those so far, but the two romps to victory still feed into the average. So the difference between the two sides has been 114.
That may sound embarrassing, but, by England’s Ashes-tour standards, it’s highly respectable. Last time round, under Joe Root, they averaged a feeble 202. Their bowlers kept the Aussies down to 350, which still left them, on average, 148 behind.
The time before, also on Root’s watch? England batted better, averaging 292. But we may have to give most of the credit to the pitches, as the Aussies averaged 514. No, that is not a misprint: the gulf was 222, almost twice as bad as in the present series.
How about 2013-14, under Alastair Cook? England averaged 216, Australia 414, so the gulf was 198. Or 2006-07, under Fred Flintoff? England 264, Australia 528, the gulf 264. Should have stuck to calling himself Andrew.
Which just leaves Nasser Hussain’s tour in 2002-03 – surely that wasn’t too bad? Well, the batting wasn’t. England 293, Australia 468, the gulf 175.
With the ball, Stokes’s team have been more effective than any other bunch of England losers, bar the lockdown gang of 2020-21. With the bat, they are fourth out of six, and as they’ve done better in each Test of this series than the one before (yes, really), they could end up second. In terms of the gulf, they’re the bees’ knees. It hasn’t been worse than usual: it’s just been more galling for the fans because their hopes were higher.
Some are calling these last two Tests a dead rubber, but that’s a term that just doesn’t belong in Test cricket. Every match is an occasion, never mind Melbourne on Boxing Day. Every match counts – for the World Championship, for the mood in the camp, for the individual’s self-respect, for the reckoning afterwards, and for the career average that a Test cricketer has to carry around on his back like a snail.
The first game I went to in Australia was the fifth Test of 1986-87 in Sydney. It was billed as a dead rubber because England, of all people, had just gone 2-0 up to seal the series. The Aussies, captained by Allan Border and buoyed by a dream debut from Peter Who?, took the game seriously and won it. The great John Woodcock reckoned it was that game that sowed the seeds of the 1989 series, when Border’s team beat England 4-0. Far from dying, that rubber had helped the Aussies to bounce back.
Recent history tells England supporters that the wheels may well be about to come off, but there’s still plenty to play for. And neither Pat Cummins nor Nathan Lyon is playing, so Root and Stokes, England’s two old stagers, won’t have to face their nemeses.
The other England batters need to treat Mitchell Starc the way they treated Jasprit Bumrah in the summer: don’t take him on, do see him off. Then they just have to figure out how to play the demon Neser. Oh, and Jhye Richardson, who, the last time he bowled in a Test, four years ago in Adelaide, helped himself to five England wickets.
A consolation victory is still a victory. And it would bring some consolation.
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Updated at 17.19 EST
