Before the second Ashes Test in Brisbane our chief cricket reporter Stephan Shemilt hosted a Reddit AMA. Here is a selection of your questions and his answers…
Will Joe Root break the curse and ton up in Brisbane, or even this tour? If he doesn’t score a hundred would you say this prevents him from being considered one of the all-time greats?
I really do think Joe Root will tick off that elusive hundred on this tour. He has been on a different level over the past couple of years, making run-scoring look effortless. It’s like he has ‘completed’ batting.
It’s worth remembering that on his previous three tours here, on one he was a very young man and on the other two he was captain. One slight concern was how pumped up he looked in the first Test. Hopefully he will be calmer from now on.
Even if he doesn’t get a hundred in Australia, surely the second-highest run-scorer in Test cricket (he may even end as the highest) must be considered an all-time great? I’m sure there are some who will believe his record should have an asterisk next to it if he doesn’t score a hundred in Australia.
A lot has been said about this being Australia’s weakest Ashes side at home since 2010-11. But that England top six, wicketkeeper and bowling attack were all class. How many of this current English team would realistically walk into the 2010-11 England Ashes XI?
OK, say we picked a combined XI of the two teams and could only go like-for-like (as in, we couldn’t move the batting order around), this would be my team: Strauss, Cook, Trott, Root, Pietersen, Stokes, Prior, Swann, Archer, Tremlett, Anderson.
It’s tough on Duckett and Brook, and Broad – he got injured after two Tests in 2010-11. Tremlett might raise a few eyebrows, but he was superb in that series. Maybe he’ll be nudged out by Carse by the end of this one.
If England lose 4-0 or 5-0 surely the Bazball project has to be over? However, I can’t see Stokes willingly dropping back into the ranks, and with Brook, the poster child of Bazball, being the captain elect it seems like England are short of directions to turn. What comes next?
This would be a really interesting situation. When this has happened to England before on Ashes tours, it has resulted in sweeping changes. I’m not sure that would be the case this time, for the reasons you’ve hinted towards.
I don’t think there’s a better option as captain than Stokes, and Brendon McCullum has a contract until 2027. If England are well beaten here, it might be that Stokes and McCullum are the men to rebuild.