*Official* Road to the 2025-26 Ashes

[honestbharani]

Have a feeling Head wont be having a great or even good Ashes here. May well be a Gilly in Ashes 2005 series for him.

 

[Burgey]

Crawley
Duckett
Pope
Root
Brook
Stokes
Smith
Carse
Atkinson
Archer
Bashir

Wood and Archer play 5 tests between them

Not a bad side. Save maybe the D/N test I really think the conditions here necessitate a spinner. Especially if Stokes can bowl. Five right arm seam bowlers is pretty ridiculous at the best of times. Root bowls part timers more than decently, but it's another thing to have to operate as the front line spinner and bowling a lot of overs.

 

[Daemon]

England’s batting > Australia’s atm.

Australia’s bowling is just leagues ahead though so it’s probably not going to be very close.

 

[Prince EWS]

England’s batting > Australia’s atm.

Australia’s bowling is just leagues ahead though so it’s probably not going to be very close.

England's batting probably isn't far enough head to even be an advantage once you factor in the home advantage, either.

 

[Niall]

England's batting probably isn't far enough head to even be an advantage once you factor in the home advantage, either.

The India v England series was a lot of fun, but those pitches were roads especially compared to the landmines we seen in the West Indies so yeah while England have a more in form top 6 their is very little in it to say the least.

Then you compare the bowling and oh man England are very much up against it.

 

[CricAddict]

England’s batting > Australia’s atm.

Australia’s bowling is just leagues ahead though so it’s probably not going to be very close.

Australia banking on Steve Smith and Travis Head right now with a bit of Carey. Most of the others are out of form.

 

[Shady Slim]

Australia banking on Steve Smith and Travis Head right now with a bit of Carey. Most of the others are out of form.

a lot of the trouble with australia's batting at the moment should be soothed when england come here and inevitably bowl two metres shorter than they need to to hit the stumps though, which they always seem to do when they come out here (even broad and anderson would do it)

 

[Son Of Coco]

Australia banking on Steve Smith and Travis Head right now with a bit of Carey. Most of the others are out of form.

England are banking on bowlers who are either not fit, haven't played a substantial amount of red ball cricket for quite some time, or aren't overly experienced in Australian conditions too though. I don't think Stokes can carry them through a series here without breaking down again.

 

[Qlder]

My predicted Aussie XI

Khawaja
Labuschagne
Green
Smith
Head
Webster
Carey
Cummins
Starc
Lyon
Hazlewood

Reserves: Inglis, Boland

 

[OverratedSanity]

England's batting probably isn't far enough head to even be an advantage once you factor in the home advantage, either.

And the kind of pitches Australia have rolled out recently. Give these English batsmen the kind of roads Australia used to produce some 6-7 years ago and I'd back them to score loads.

 

[kevinw]

Can't see England having a sniff in this series and it should go the way of recent away Ashes. These series often start badly (Burns' first baller) and then unravel really badly. How did Sam Billings play a Test last time? And didn't Tom Curran and Mason Crane play the same Test in the series before? Australia's batting might be brittle but their bowling attack will be relentless. England won't handle the pressure. It'll be 5-0, 4-0 (weather) or 4-1.

 

[TheJediBrah]

England's chance of winning will be if the Aus selectors refuse to "rest" the bowlers and Boland misses the whole series on the sidelines

 

[honestbharani]

Not a bad side. Save maybe the D/N test I really think the conditions here necessitate a spinner. Especially if Stokes can bowl. Five right arm seam bowlers is pretty ridiculous at the best of times. Root bowls part timers more than decently, but it's another thing to have to operate as the front line spinner and bowling a lot of overs.

I would actually Rehan ahead of Bashir. Leggie can get the odd wicket even if he goes for runs and he will anyways be going for the same amount of runs as Bashir. And Rehan can get some runs too down at 8.

 

[honestbharani]

England are banking on bowlers who are either not fit, haven't played a substantial amount of red ball cricket for quite some time, or aren't overly experienced in Australian conditions too though.

Worked for us during covid tbh.

 

[Molehill]

I would actually Rehan ahead of Bashir. Leggie can get the odd wicket even if he goes for runs and he will anyways be going for the same amount of runs as Bashir. And Rehan can get some runs too down at 8.

Rehan has 4 tons at over 50 this season in the CC and 23 wickets at 19, although he hasn't actually bowled all that much (just 164 overs in 10 games). I don't think his bowling would stand up in Aus. It'll almost certainly be Bashir who Stokes likes. As Ponting noted, he will at least have some Starc created rough to bowl into for the right handers whilst Aus do have a fair few lefties too. I think the only debate for the First Test starting line up is who is the 3rd seamer with Archer/Atkinson (of course who is fit may well dictate that).

 

[Molehill]

Not a bad side. Save maybe the D/N test I really think the conditions here necessitate a spinner. Especially if Stokes can bowl. Five right arm seam bowlers is pretty ridiculous at the best of times. Root bowls part timers more than decently, but it's another thing to have to operate as the front line spinner and bowling a lot of overs.

It's definitely the best squad we will have sent since probably 2010 (that's if all the quicks turn up fit, they generally don't). It's not perfect but it's a settled batting order, and you'd fancy the likes of Duckett, Root, Brook to score runs at some point. But it's definitely the best set of quicks, it obviously doesn't match Australia's, but it will pose problems to one of the weaker batting line ups Aus have put out (arguably the weakest since 2010).

 

[kevinw]

Rehan has 4 tons at over 50 this season in the CC and 23 wickets at 19, although he hasn't actually bowled all that much (just 164 overs in 10 games). I don't think his bowling would stand up in Aus. It'll almost certainly be Bashir who Stokes likes. As Ponting noted, he will at least have some Starc created rough to bowl into for the right handers whilst Aus do have a fair few lefties too. I think the only debate for the First Test starting line up is who is the 3rd seamer with Archer/Atkinson (of course who is fit may well dictate that).

I would take Rehan as the second spinner. Can't see Dawson getting back in the side and Leach seems to have been forgotten.

 

[Paranoid Kendroid]

Sorry English fans but I don't see any other outcome than this at the end:

 

[Molehill]

I would take Rehan as the second spinner. Can't see Dawson getting back in the side and Leach seems to have been forgotten.

Yeah, I think Dawson is done for now, although will be interesting to see if he's selected for the white ball games in Sept. If he misses out there then he's got no chance for the Ashes. I suspect the final straw was dropping Jaiswal rather than his actual bowling.

 

[TheJediBrah]

It's definitely the best squad we will have sent since probably 2010

2013/14 was stronger