Bob Willis: Joe Root must move up the order and bat at 3… but it may not stop Ashes whitewash
Jonny Bairstow must also be pushed up to 5 to give England a better chance of avoiding more humiliation Down Under
JOE ROOT must front up, shuffle England’s batting order and promote himself to No.3.
It might not prevent a 5-0 whitewash – I fear the worst after defeat in the Second Test – but Root at three represents England’s best chance of putting a decent total on the board.
I would also move Jonny Bairstow up two places to No.5. So my top seven for next week’s Third Test in Perth is 1.Alastair Cook, 2.Mark Stoneman, 3.Root, 4.James Vince, 5.Bairstow, 6.Moeen Ali and 7.Dawid Malan.
I’m extremely frustrated by England’s batting order because the best players have to bat in the key positions and Root is clearly the best player.
If he comes in at 0-1, he is good enough to resist Australia’s new ball bowlers. If he comes in at 150-1 (well, maybe 50-1!), he has the range of shots to dominate the opposition.
Joe likes No.4 because it gives him more time to gather his thoughts after a long spell in the field. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask him to captain the side and go in at ‘first drop.’
Andrew Strauss led an Ashes-winning tour in 2010-11 when he opened the batting. Alec Stewart used to captain, bat high in the order and keep wicket.
The Aussies are gunning for Root so self-promotion would be a bold statement. Trouble is, I fear he and the England management might be too intransigent to change.
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Bairstow is one of the better England batsmen – certainly in the top three – and yet he is languishing at No.7 supposedly because he is good at batting with the tail.
That might apply in England or somewhere where there aren’t quick bowlers.
But Australia’s fast bowlers keep blowing away our tail with their ferocious, short-pitched barrage.
It means that, because Jonny has no confidence in numbers eight to eleven, he starts playing Mickey Mouse shots to get the scoreboard moving rather than trusting the guys at the other end.
So he is either getting out in unnecessary ways or risks being left stranded 25 not out.
Bairstow has scored several brilliant centuries for England but he is wasted as a minder of the tail.
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The Adelaide Test was England’s best chance of getting back into the series and they did cause Australia problems when they bowled under lights in the second innings.
But it was too late. There is a significant gulf between the teams in Australia with the Kookaburra ball.
There is unlikely to be a draw in the remaining three Tests and how are England going to nick a victory?
Sadly, 5-0 is a real possibility. It’s a big disappointment because I thought England would be much more competitive.
Things started to go wrong from the moment Root chose to field first.
The last England captain to do it in Adelaide was yours truly in 1982-83 when Ian Botham, David Gower and Allan Lamb must have been wearing cheap, green-tinted glasses.
They claimed to see some grass on the pitch and convinced me to bowl.
We lost by eight wickets. As Ian Chappell says, you bat 99 per cent of the time in Adelaide and, with the other one per cent, you think about bowling but still bat.
So Root made a mistake but, truth is, Australia look unstoppable. Their trio of quicks are irresistible right now and Nathan Lyon is getting better and better.
The whole theme of world cricket is that bowlers tuned to their home conditions have a huge advantage. It is very difficult to win away these days.
Last winter, everyone was bemoaning the lack of spinners after England were beaten 4-0 in India. Now they’re bemoaning the lack of quicks.
It is a shocking indictment of county championship cricket that there aren’t any fast bowlers or spinners.
Selectors get lulled into thinking batsmen are better than they are so, when they take that enormous leap into the Test arena, they struggle.
County cricket is dominated by fast-medium nibblers on helpful surfaces.
Darren Stevens, aged 41, opens the bowling for Kent and takes heaps of wickets at little more than 70mph.