Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
Ever since Jofra Archer became available, the talk was about how the plan was to hit Australia with pace through him, Stone and Wood. Of course injuries to the first two put the kybosh on that, but, instead of Wood being a cert for selection, he was left out of the second test. On the day before the test match, Johnathan Agnew said the pitch was very dry and England had to play a specialist spinner, this was a view I heard from others in the lead up to the game.
Instead of that, the decision was to pick five “typical English seamers” and on the fourth day we had the farcical sight of an England spin attack consisting of Root (who, to be fair, is a better bowler than he seems to think he is), Malan and Robinson wheeling away as Australia added runs they were never going to need against this England batting line up.
I think the lesson of stacks of English tours of Australia is that one of or a mixture of pace, wrist spin and left arm spin tends to win games in that country, but England are selecting teams that give them little chance in a country where they must have a big inferiority complex.