It seems like England is trying everything to reverse its Ashes woes ahead of the Boxing Day Test.
England’s incumbent opening pair of Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed have been under plenty of pressure to keep their spots after averaging 12.75 and 14.50 respectively.
While the Poms have not finalised the team that will take to the field in Melbourne, both Burns and Hameed have been put through their paces in the nets.
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That includes having its openers bat on one leg.
“This was quite intriguing today,” cricket journalist Melinda Farrell tweeted.
“Burns batting on one leg, flamingo style. Wondered if it was about balance or his front foot. Then Hameed was doing it. Then Hameed was doing one leg & one hand, his bottom hand.”
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While the unusual sight had plenty of England supporters confused, Namibia captain Gerhard Erasmus weighed in to provide a player’s perspective.
“Some negative comments on here, but I like it,” he tweeted.
“When you’re backs against the wall, you have to fall back on foundations. Base work. They are high level players, and with a positive mindset can turn their form around. Cricket is brutal, but you’ve got to own your own game.
Skipper Root had also got creative in the nets, batting with a fourth stump behind him after conceding he needs to improve his discipline outside off.
It comes after Dawid Malan admitted England as a whole needs to be better at leaving deliveries instead of giving up easy wickets.
“We learned a majority of us, there’s a lead-up to those dismissals, how bowlers set you up,” he told reporters.
“A lot of our dismissals were soft ones, in the sense we could have left them. That doesn’t mean we go out to leave balls.
“We still have to score, cricket’s about scoring runs, it’s not about leaving balls, it’s about making the right choices under pressure and a lot of the times we didn’t make the right choice, myself included, under pressure.”
JOE ROOT’S ‘BRAVE’ MCG PREDICTION
Elsewhere, if England is looking for a reason to confident, skipper Root has made a “brave” prediction ahead of the third Test.
The Poms head to Melbourne needing to win to any hope of taking out the Ashes.
It comes after a 275-run loss to Australia in Adelaide, which has only turned up the heat on Root’s captaincy credentials.
Root though does not seem fazed and in fact has only put more pressure on himself, boldly predicting he will put up a century in the upcoming Test.
“I feel in a really good place with my batting,” he said.
“I feel confident I can, in these next three games, bang out a hundred in these conditions.
“I know that’s a brave thing to say but my conversation rate, this year, it’s not been an issue at all.
“I feel like I have managed that well and have an understanding of how I want to score my runs. There’s clarity there, I just need to keep putting myself in those positions, just have the bit between my teeth, (make it) ‘over my dead body’.”
There are plenty of reasons for Root to be confident in his ability having put up 1,630 Test runs this year.
Australia though has limited the England captain to scores of 89 and 62 and Root has now been unseated by Marnus Labuschagne as the world’s No 1 Test batter.
“I’ve never been one for that stuff, but it would be nice to have it back for Christmas,” Root joked of regaining his crown.
‘LEARNING ON THE JOB’: REALITY CHECK EXPOSES BIG POMS PROBLEM
England are “hurting” but determined to rise to the challenge and claw their way back into the Ashes series against Australia, batsman Dawid Malan said ahead of the Boxing Day Test.
After slumping by nine wickets in Brisbane and then by 275 runs in Adelaide, the visitors will enter the Melbourne Cricket Ground cauldron for the third Test on Sunday needing to win.
If they don’t, the five-Test series is over with Australia retaining the urn as holders.
Malan said there had been frank discussions after Adelaide, where a first-innings batting collapse coupled with poor bowling and fielding cost England the match.
“The boys are hurting after our performances in the last two games. They realise we haven’t been good enough across all facets of the game,” he told journalists.
“Speaking to all the guys, everyone is up for the challenge, everyone is really keen to face up to the Australians. The boys want to win, we want to win the series too.
“I know it’s a long way to come but we have to do well and play our best cricket to get ourselves back in the series.”
Mark Wood, meanwhile, admitted England need a “kick up the bum” after the Adelaide humiliation.
“We probably needed it – a brutally honest discussion at the end of the game in the dressing room” Wood told reporters.
“Chris Silverwood spoke and put some footage up. Stokesy [Ben Stokes] and Rooty spoke honestly to the group about things we felt weren’t going well and what we’d do better.
“It was a conversation that isn’t usual for us. It was a kick up the bum to say: ‘look, we are 2-0 down now, and the same mistakes keep on happening’. It was a good discussion. As a bowling group we can always get better – I just feel like with the batting, as we discussed in the meeting, these heavy collapses we keep having is what’s costing us Test matches.”
There have been suggestions of a growing divide in the camp but Wood said that could not be further from the truth.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s a batters v bowlers thing, with all the batters in one corner giving snidey talk about the bowlers, and all the bowlers in the other corner snidey-talking about the batters,” he said.
“It’s not like that. We’re just desperate to play better than we are. We’re all in it together but we’re coming under a bit of fire at the minute for batting and bowling, because we’re getting soundly beaten.”
The odds are against England — the only instance of a team coming from 2-0 down to win the Ashes was Donald Bradman’s Australia way back in 1936-37.
Malan and captain Joe Root have been the only two English batsmen to excel, both hitting half-centuries in Brisbane and Adelaide, but unable to go on and make a big score.
“Scoring 80’s good, scoring 180’s brilliant, so that’s the goal,” said the South African-born Malan, who has hit nine Test 50s but only converted one into a century.
He suggested that England’s travails against a high-quality attack was also down to a lack of Test experience on Australian pitches, with he and Root among the few to have played an away Ashes series before.
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“We are almost learning on the job in Test matches because a lot of the guys haven’t played in Australia, so they are facing bowlers they’ve never faced before and getting used to the bounce out here,” he said.
Malan’s comments go to the heart of a big problem in English cricket — that its domestic set-up has not adequately prepared its players for Test cricket in Australia and other conditions more generally.
British media have suggested changes could be afoot for the Boxing Day Test with Zak Crawley tipped to replace either Rory Burns or Haseeb Hameed, who have both struggled for runs at the top of the order.
Ollie Pope has also been disappointing at number six, with the experienced Jonny Bairstow a potential replacement.
‘COULD GET PRETTY UGLY’: AUSSIE GREAT’S WARNING TO POMS
Australian cricket legend Glenn McGrath has joined Michael Vaughan in urging England to find its hard edge ahead of Melbourne’s Test, declaring the team is “too nice”.
While the Poms were pulverised by 275 runs in Adelaide, Vaughan was left surprised by just how friendly the England squad was with their Australian rivals given the poor results.
“It’s too nice,” Vaughan said on Fox Cricket’s Follow-On podcast.
“I see on the morning of the game they are all talking to Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon. I never had a conversation with Steve Waugh back in the day. I wouldn’t have dared go and speak to Glenn McGrath on the morning of the game or Shane Warne. You just didn’t.
“It’s all a bit friendly. I’d get nasty with them … They somehow need to find that on day one. Get into the scrap. Chirp, do whatever, just get into the scrap.”
He is not the only one who feels that way, with McGrath warning England’s tour down under could “get ugly very quickly” if it does not take on a more aggressive approach.
“Every time you hear one of the English or Australian players interviewed, they use a nickname,” he told The Telegraph UK.
“Broady, Jimmy, Kez. I was asking the other day, ‘Who’s Kez?’ Oh, Alex Carey.’ They’re a lot more familiar with each other than we were when I played.
“It can be a little bit too nice sometimes.
“That’s the way everything’s going, isn’t it? There’s a lot of political correctness. People are a bit nervous about being aggressive and playing hard.”
McGrath went on to add that when Nasser Hussain came down under with England, the squad was not even allowed to talk to the Australian players.
“It’s all about body language,” McGrath added.
“How much does it mean, representing your country? England have to go back to the drawing board and have a real good think about this.”
McGrath did concede that plenty has changed since his playing days, with rivals more globally connected than ever before but still had a dire warning for the Poms.
“With the IPL and the Big Bash, these players know one another well,” he added.
“When you see batsmen and bowlers joking around at the end of the over, even when it’s one-sided, you think, ‘Oh, OK.’ I’d like to see some emotion out there in the middle.
“I’d love there to be more of a battle.
“Australia aren’t going to take their foot off the throttle, now that they have Pat Cummins coming back. James Anderson looks like he’s down on pace, and the ball’s not swinging. This could get pretty ugly very quickly.”