If you took your cues from the England camp, you could be forgiven for thinking that they had taken an Ashes lead in Birmingham. It is true that by probability they should have won the first Test, at least from the point when Australia went eight wickets down in the chase. It’s also true that they didn’t and heading to Lord’s Australia have that most precious commodity for visiting teams: a lead.
After Edgbaston had proved a tricky venue over several tours, they would be as relieved to come away from the ground with a win this time as they were in 2019. Both times, first with Steve Smith’s comeback ton from a terrible position, then with Pat Cummins and his run-chase charge, there is a sense of having burgled a result from a place England have tried to characterise as a fortress.
If that depiction is overblown, Lord’s cricket ground is in comparison a genuine stronghold – for Australia. England won there in the Ashes of 2009 and 2013. In the 10 years since that span, and the 75 years before it, Australia are unbeaten.
Australia Test teams started visiting there in 1884 and have played 39 Tests, including one against South Africa and one against Pakistan. Out of those 39 they have lost seven times: four in the 1800s, one in 1934, and the two from the current millennium. It’s an extraordinary record at an away venue.
This history probably doesn’t register in the minds of current players, but they will feel confident heading there in their own right. The head groundsman, Karl McDermott, has a tried-and-true method that produces very consistent Test pitches and while there is often early attention on visible grass and the effects of the slope those Lord’s surfaces tend to flatten out for batting.
That makes pace important, and Australia will remember Mitchell Johnson taking apart Alastair Cook’s team in 2015 on a track that looked flat when Smith and Chris Rogers were piling on runs. This time they will look to bring Mitchell Starc back into the team for that left-arm pace variety, perhaps giving Scott Boland a spell having played back-to-back with the World Test Championship final.
Smith will be eyeing that pitch after a rare double failure at Edgbaston. He is not the freak-level factory of runs he was at his peak, but is still capable of compiling big scores as he showed against India a couple of weeks ago. With 92, 58, and 215 in his past three innings at Lord’s, he will want another entry on the honours board after narrowly missing out having been concussed by Jofra Archer in 2019.
Mark Wood will surely be that pace option for England, after missing Birmingham on a team balance call. He was England’s bright light on their last visit to Australia, and his six for 37 on the final day in Hobart should have had his team in the match if the batting had not already been mentally shot. He has a good record against Marnus Labuschagne, three dismissals in four Tests, which may be needed should Labuschagne succeed in training himself out of chasing Stuart Broad’s wider deliveries.
A batting surface would offer a valuable chance to David Warner at the top of Australia’s order, after in-between scores of 43 to start the WTC final and 36 in the second innings at Edgbaston. Both times the opener helped get through difficult spells of bowling and gave Australia a start, but he needs a substantial score to feel like he has found a way into the series.
As for Cummins, after the high of winning with the bat, he will have to regain focus on the tactical challenge as a captain as well as how he needs to bowl. The fast outfield at Lord’s will be an open invitation to England’s aggressive style, a precursor to which came in 2019 when Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow laid into Australia in the third innings.
With a bit of experience banked, expect some changes in approach. The singles that got Joe Root so comfortably into his stride on the first day at Edgbaston, for instance, were cut off in England’s second innings as Root turned to exotic shots. The team’s run rate, while brisk at 4.11 an over, was one of their slowest since the Brendon McCullum revolution took effect at Trent Bridge last year. Doubling down on that will be an Australia priority.
In truth, everybody will be doubling down. England on devotion to their tactics, dissatisfied onlookers on criticising the same, media outlets on comments back and forth between Ollie Robinson and whoever is queuing up to go next. The Lord’s Test is the time for it, the week with the most feeling of Ashes pageantry and cultural friction. Time for England to buck history or Australia to entrench their own.
