So, just two Tests into an Ashes series that was preceded by a winter of worry about how eight might go into seven, the answer has become blatantly clear: whittle it down to six.
From struggling to accommodate all their batters, England have now found room for an extra bowler, having announced a rejigged team for tomorrow’s must-win Third Test at Headingley that includes a spruced-up attack and, perhaps more intriguingly than any of the changes in personnel, a promotion to No3 for Harry Brook.
There were some during the great Ben Foakes-Jonny Bairstow debate that advocated Brook as opener as a have-it-all solution, so solid was the game displayed during his international breakout over the winter. A player of his obvious talent was always likely to find himself climbing the rungs at some point during his Test carer, but Ollie Pope’s dislocated shoulder has accelerated that advance.
To say it has forced England’s hand would be a stretch: Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum might have drafted in Dan Lawrence, the spare batter in the squad, or asked Joe Root to shuffle up the order to occupy a position he has filled for prolonged periods in the past, albeit often reluctantly.
Promoting Brook is a typically punchy move, one that keeps England’s best batter, Root, in his best position and does not feel as disruptive a gamble as it might have at the start of the series, when Brook could do no wrong in the middle order.
The 24-year-old’s first dip into Ashes cricket has hardly been a disaster thus far but, compared to a freakish winter in which he scored four hundreds — two in excess of 150 — and a couple of eighties, returns have been middling. His dismissal in the first innings at Lord’s, out taking on the bouncer on the third morning having watched several teammates succumb in similar fashion the previous day, brought the noisiest criticism of his short career.
Scores of 32, 46, 50 and four tell a story of three starts squandered and then the punishment that cricket at this level can bring when you do not cash in, namely an unplayable new-ball nut from Pat Cummins.
Australia’s approach to Brook at first drop will be intriguing. Having unearthed an apparent vulnerability to the short ball at Lord’s, will they go straight to that ploy or first run the rule over his top-order technique? The likelihood is that Brook will face twin examinations, the unlikelihood that he will stray too far from the positive approach that has made him one of Bazball’s poster boys. At Lord’s, Ben Duckett took the record for the highest strike rate (85) of any England batter to have made more than 1,000 Test runs, but Brook, already just 50 runs shy of that landmark, could blow it out of the water this week (his current strike rate is 96).
In any case, a three-day turnaround between Tests means this is hardly the time for tinkering, the advice from Root to his Yorkshire brethren yesterday being to trust what you know.
“I’ve been there before, I’ve overthought it and tried to change things that don’t need to be changed,” the former captain said. “You know what it’s about and what it takes to have success against this attack. Go on and do it again. Go and make it really count this time.”
A knock-on effect of Brook’s promotion has allowed Bairstow to return to No5, the position from which he caused so much destruction last summer but then surrendered to Brook during his absence with a broken leg. There again, this week of all weeks, one suspects the circumstances of Bairstow’s arrival at the crease may be somewhat less influential than those in which he left it at Lord’s on Sunday.
“You can bet your bottom dollar he will have the bit between his teeth,” Root said. “You want to be watching every ball this week.”
Brook’s rise is a step, for him and England, into the unknown. Bairstow, though, has previous in situations like these. No one does a chip on the shoulder quite like Jonny, and on his home ground, with the Ashes on the line, the stage seems set for a trademark backlash.
