The bluff and bluster over whether the Ashes would happen is over, and now England is making some big calls about the strength of its squad.
England captain Joe Root’s “class” in talks that ensured the Ashes would go ahead has galvanised his leadership and he’ll head to Australia with a “battle-hardened” playing group ready to retake the urn.
Root was a key man in recent talks between Cricket Australia and their English counterparts as they thrashed out details of quarantine arrangements that had put a cloud over the five-Test series.
But successful negotiations cleared the way for the England skipper and his teammates to travel and a near full-strength team was named on Sunday night, minus only the injured Jofra Archer and all-rounder Ben Stokes, who is on indefinite leave form the game.
England coach Chris Silverwood said Root’s status had grown immensely throughout the recent tumultuous period and everyone in the touring party was right behind him.
“There were a lot of negotiations that went on … (Root) showed a lot of class, a lot of empathy and a lot of real good leadership skills to get the players to this point,” Silverwood said after the touring party was confirmed
“What it has done, I think, is galvanise his position as a leader. He came back with a very level view on everything and it really helped to get us to this point.
“His players have got behind him and will follow him, so will I and my staff. I think we’ve got to a good place before what should be a very competitive series in Australia.”
Australia has played just a single Test match in 2021, against India in January, while England has played home series against both New Zealand and India in recent months.
They lost to the Kiwis 1-0 and were trailing 2-1 against India before the tourists’ controversial withdrawal from the final match in Manchester last month.
“I think we are battle hardened, we’ve had some success along the way and we’ve proven we can compete with India,” Silverwood said.
“The important thing for me is our players have seen what the best in the world look like, they’ve played against it, they’ve felt what it is to have them push against us.”
Despite Archer not travelling, Silverwood was adamant a bowling attack led by veterans Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad could get the job done in Australia.
“I think we can (take 20 wickets),” he said.
”Every plan has got to be adaptable. But I think the one thing that we have got in the bowling attack is supreme accuracy. You look at the bowlers that are there and the one thing they are very good at is hitting the stumps and bringing the stumps into play time and time again.
“We watched how India performed in Australia (last summer) and we tried to learn lessons from them. What we will be doing is looking back over the plans India used and adapting any of those to our bowling attack.
“How do we get the best out of the bowling attack we have got rather than worrying about what we haven’t got? There is nothing we can do about that so it’s pointless. We will be using the skills we have in the best possible way and I do believe that we can make it work.
““I think we’ll be very competitive. We look at the fact Australia have been very strong over the years and we have to respect them. But we have over the last 6-7 months played the top two teams in the world, learned a hell of a lot.”
The first Ashes Test starts in Brisbane on December 8.
England squad: Joe Root (c), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.
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