Wounded England consider road to revive Ashes hopes

Needing to win all three remaining Tests, and robbed of the services of the injured Mark Wood, will under-pressure Ben Stokes roll the dice in Adelaide

- Harry Latham-Coyle

If, for whatever reason, one wished to idle away the time between the second and third Tests of this Ashes series, perhaps a fun game to play might be to speculate on the English selection once they arrive in Sydney for the final fixture of the tour. Now, such a suggestion may feel premature with the

contest still alive, and a bullish Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes certain that the tourists can roar back, but even those with a limited appreciation of past Ashes history will recognise that the English XI that ends a disastrous trip down under tends to be rather different than that which one might have imagined at its start.

Take 2017-18, for example, when England fielded a final attack containing Tom Curran and Mason Crane - neither is likely to add to their combined three Test caps. Four years earlier, it had been Boyd Rankin and Scott Borthwick tossed debuts at the SCG, with neither sighted again in England whites. Such selections are not exclusively the preserve of the 21st century – the 1994-95 trip ended with Mark Ramprakash bowling 19 overs of off-spin with an all-seam attack made to toil at the Waca, while a recalled Colin Cowdrey, then 41, opened the batting for England in the sixth Test 20 years earlier - a game England won by an innings at the conclusion of a bruising trip.

The point, then, is that there is a tendency for the baby to go with the bathwater when things head south for England in Australia. There was an interesting moment in the post-match wash-up on TNT Sports that followed defeat at the Gabba when Matt Prior, the former wicket-keeper, asked fellow 2013-14 tourist Stokes what he felt he could learn from that trip. “Don’t panic. Don’t flap. Don’t waver,” was the now captain’s reply.