Stokes provides welcome spark but Ashes blueprint in danger

Eight days before the curtain rises on the Ashes in the sold-out enormodome that is Perth’s Optus Stadium, England’s campaign began in semi-earnest a few actual kilometres and a million metaphorical miles away in front of a few dozen spectators in leafy, sedate Lilac Hill.

- Simon Burnton

Fit and firing captain takes six Ben Stokes's venomous short-pitched bowling brought him six wickets against the Lions

(GARETH COPLEY/GETTY IMAGES)

What followed was intriguing, at times even encouraging, but for news of a potentially significant injury, and, while Ben Stokes had promised “balls-to-the-wall” action, it was more jaws to the floor as news of Mark Wood’s stiff left hamstring filtered through in mid-afternoon.

England had revealed their blueprint for the first Test in naming a lineup featuring five seam options including Stokes himself and no full-time spinner, with Shoaib Bashir relegated to the Lions team. But however carefully it is prepared, sometimes a blueprint is destined to become nothing but shredder-fodder.

With Wood’s participation in next Friday’s opening Test now in doubt and Bashir’s suddenly looking more likely, certainty has slipped through English fingers much as a few catches did across a breezy day by the Swan River. Brendon McCullum might have been expecting to be given food for thought, but these will not have been the thoughts he was looking for.