(Cricket news) Amidst all the chaos and controversy, Australia have a 2-0 lead in the 5 match Ashes series. England need to win the next match which is at Headingley where Ben Stokes famously played one of the greatest knocks in the history of Test match cricket in the 2019 Ashes series. Both the teams need to assess their options going into the 3rd Test as there are likely to be changes. England may even have to rethink their approach as it is currently not working for them. The stumping controversy has added a lot of fire and the team’s are likely to be a lot less friendly from the next Test onwards.
Australia suffered a big blow when Nathan Lyon walked off injured at Lord’s. He has been officially ruled out of the rest of the series. Thankfully for Australia, they have a good replacement in the form of Todd Murphy. Lyon will be a huge miss for Australia but Murphy showed in the India series that he is a good spinner who can do the job.
The rest of the team should remain unchanged unless Josh Hazelwood needs a rest in which case Scott Bolland will come in. There is an outside the box chance that Australia bring in Bolland to replace Lyon and play 5 seamers with Travis Head acting as the spinner. The Australians will be expecting England to come at them but they have the tools to seal the series at Headingley.
England on the other hand have a selection headache as Moeen Ali is fit and available again. Headingley will assist spinners more than Lord’s, so England need to bring Moeen back. Dropping Josh Tongue would be a very tough call as he was probably England’s best bowler in the 2nd Test. Arguably England’s worst bowler was James Anderson but it will be a big call to drop one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time. There is also a question of England’s bowling lacking some pace which makes a good case for Mark Wood to be included in the team. Either way whoever dropping anyone would be difficult and England need to get their team right.
Also read: Australia’s stumping of Jonny Bairstow causes all sorts of controversy
