CRICKET - THE ASHES: ANDREW STRAUSS has confirmed England are likely to resist the clamour for Ian Bell to be pushed up the batting order for the St Stephen's Test and instead bank on Paul Collingwood rediscovering his batting form when the chips are down.
Bell has consistently been England’s classiest batsman on tour but he is still awaiting his first Ashes hundred and in Brisbane and Perth his approach at number six was eventually affected by the fear he might run out of partners.
Collingwood, by contrast, has gone 10 innings since his last Test half-century, against Pakistan at Trent Bridge in July, but there is a belief that a slower pitch at the MCG, plus the prospect of a world-record 90,000 fans on the first day, makes this his best chance of the series.
Pressed about the possibility of Bell and Collingwood switching positions, Strauss said: “I don’t think so. I’m not going to 100 per cent rule it out, but I’d be surprised if we went down that route. Belly has been a very reassuring presence at six and there may come a time in the future where he can go up the order.
“But now is not the time for massive changes. It is the time to go back to what has worked very well for us on this tour and Belly has been a fine example of a number six batsman coming in and taking the game away from the opposition. He’s in very good form and I can appreciate why people are clamouring for him to go up the order, but I’m very happy with what he is doing down there.
“The main problem is that he has been left with the tail because there haven’t been batsmen alongside him building big partnerships and that is our job.”
The time will come when England will await a Collingwood renaissance and it will never arrive. England’s determination to plan consistently means they are not about to lose faith with the series at the biting point. One more dogged innings from a redoubtable cricketer could mean England retain the Ashes.
“We all know what Colly is like, he is a great fighter,” Strauss said. “He might not have scored as many runs as he would have liked in the series but he’s at his best when his back is against the wall and we’ve got great faith in him.”
There is a very good chance that this game and the one in Sydney will be Collingwood’s last Test matches and that, by the summer – on his own initiative but probably with gentle encouragement – he will have retired from Tests to concentrate on the shorter forms.
His absence is not an option, for Dublin’s Eoin Morgan has much to learn about Test batting and will get the chance next summer. Collingwood’s catching, not least to Swann, is worth runs in itself.
Meanwhile, Australia have more fundamental selection problems. Of course Ricky Ponting will play, even with a cracked finger. But they must decide whether to continue with the winning format from Perth, which – given it is 52 years since they won an MCG Test with four seamers (and even then had Richie Benaud’s leg spin) and have never in 102 matches over 135 years not had a frontline spinner there – would represent a massive deviation from historical precedent.
If not, they must play a spinner of no international experience in place either of the bowler who lent them control in Perth or of the one who took a hat-trick in Brisbane. An educated guess would be for an unchanged XI.
