Another injury!
Having lost Steven Finn from the tour due to a knee issue and with Mark Wood deemed not fit enough for selection, the last thing England needed was another injury to a fast bowler.
However, that’s exactly what they got as Jake Ball injured his ankle as it buckled as he was in his delivery stride.
England say he’s sprained the joint and that he’ll be assessed in the coming days. They’ll be hoping it’s not too serious or they could find themselves shipping another quickie out to Australia.
Opportunity for Overton
Ball’s injury, if serious, will put Craig Overton of the front of the queue for the fourth seamer position and he’ll be likely make his Test debut when the Ashes series gets underway.
He looked good in the first innings of the warm-up game, taking one wicket for 40 runs in his 15 overs.
The big Somerset man showed decent control and looked threatening too, which is what’s needed from a fourth quick bowler.
Wonderful Woakes
Barring injury, Chris Woakes will be England’s third seamer in the Ashes. He bowed well on Day Two, taking two wickets for 48 runs.
Australia are likely to target him all series so he’ll need to bowl with the control he showed in this game. If he does that, he’ll have a successful Ashes tour.
More for Mason
With Moeen Ali injured, leg spinner Mason Crane is getting an opportunity to play and when Ball went down, the onus to bowl the extra overs was on him.
Crane started well but just before the dinner break, he seemed to lose his length and that meant he took a bit of a pasting from the batsmen.
He did, however, come back well to pick up two late wickets to finish with three wickets for 78 runs from his 21 overs.
It was a bit of a shock when Crane was selected as the back up spinner and the youngster needs to be able to give his captain control in difficult periods if selected in the Test matches or England will be in a lot of trouble.
Amazing Anderson
Ok, so we didn’t learn that Jimmy Anderson is amazing in this game, we already knew that. However, he did, once again, show his importance to this England side.
He bowled beautifully, taking two wickets for 30 runs in 17 overs.
It goes without saying that if England want to win the Ashes, they need a big series from their record wicket taker and this was a promising start.
Better fielding from England
England used to pride themselves on being an amazing fielding side but in the last six months or so, standards seemed to slip with plenty of catches going down.
It’s early days but Root’s men looked much sharper and bar Jonny Bairstow missing a difficult opportunity at a stumping, they took their chances well and their ground-fielding was good too.
England put a lot of work into their fielding and the signs on Day Two suggest that their efforts in training are starting to pay off.
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