This Ashes series is warming up nicely

Well, this Ashes series is warming up very nicely. Edgbaston was a good match, Lord’s, despite the rain, a better one. In both there has been a nice balance between bat and ball. As Geoffrey Boycott said, Test cricket is more gripping when you have innings of around 250-300 rather than one side piling up 600 – not that Sir Geoffrey in his playing days would have been happy without a big century or two.

With these Tests coming thick and fast, there’s scarcely time to draw breath before the next one. If this is emotionally exhausting for fans, think of the pressure on the players. Australia do have the comfort of being able to rotate their pace bowlers; it would be a surprise if Mitchell Starc doesn’t play at Headingley, with either Siddle or Hazlewood told to put his feet up for a few days. England in the absence of James Anderson don’t have that luxury. On the other hand, the news that the magnificent Steve Smith won’t play at Leeds will give England a lift, and will correspondingly put more pressure on the Australian top order.

There’s much chatter on social media about the number of bouncers, and of course about Jofra Archer’s felling of Smith. Well, one doesn’t like to see batsmen being hit on the head, but frighteningly fast bowling has been part of cricket for most of the game’s history. Australia have had their own terrifiers from the days of Jack Gregory and Ted McDonald immediately after the First World War onwards. I am old enough to remember Lindwall and Miller fiercely attacking England’s best batsmen Len Hutton and Denis Compton. At Old Trafford in 1948 Lindwall floored Compton with a bouncer. Denis retired but returned with his head bandaged to add another 141 to his score. No helmets then of course. Five years later at The Oval a Lindwall bouncer took the peak of Hutton’s cap which almost flew into the stumps. And one of Australia’s first fast bowlers, Ernest Jones, once sent a ball through W G Grace’s beard. “Sorry, doctor, she slipped,” he said, but I doubt if the apology was sincere.

Since then the Aussies have had Lillee and Thomson, Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson, all fearsomely fast and none averse to hitting the head. Now that lovely bowler Pat Cummins bowls a nasty bouncer without consideration of the batsman’s ability. Why should he when the sub-section of the Law on intimidatory bowling, which advises umpires to take the relative skill of the batsman into account, is almost always ignored, and might as well not exist.

Sharp though Cummins’s bouncers are, I would guess that Archer’s are more often surprising. This is because his easy loose-limbed action and his high arm make judgement difficult. They rise abruptly from not much short of a good length; they are steepling bouncers and they seem to bore in on the batsman; very nasty indeed. The one to Smith was beautiful or horrible, depending on your point of view, but Smith broke the cardinal rule, took his eye off it and actually ducked into the ball.

The new regulation permitting a side to withdraw a batsman who has suffered a concussion from the match and replace him with a substitute is a good one, though some may see it as an undesirable thin end of the wedge which may lead to other replacements being permitted. What for instance if a bowler breaks a batsman’s arm, as the West Indian fast bowler Wes Hall broke Colin Cowdrey’s at Lord’s in 1963? The lawmakers should be wary. Rugby Union first permitted replacements only for injured players; it wasn’t that long before replacements at will were common. We certainly don’t want cricket to go down that road. As for the issue of concussion, there must surely be internationally applied protocols for the return to play.

Edgbaston left English supporters dismayed and pessimistic, partly because of Smith’s dominance, more reasonably on account of the feebleness of the English batting on the last day. Yet the gloom was a bit overdone, because there were three points in that match when England had got themselves in a position from which they might have won. In any case things can turn round quickly in sport: witness for example this month’s two Bledisloe Cup matches between Australia and New Zealand. At home the Wallabies won handsomely; a week later the All Blacks slaughtered them.

England looked somewhat bedraggled after Edgbaston. Now they can go to Headingley with their tails up. A captain always has his critics and, with England coming close to snatching a win at Lord’s, there were some who said Joe Root should have declared six, eight, even ten overs sooner. This rather missed the point that Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler had spent the morning session staving off what had looked like a probable defeat, one which would have left them two down with three to play in the series. It was only in their last few overs that Stokes and Jonny Bairstow had felt free and been able to rattle the score along. I would guess too that Root was wary of the threat posed by David Warner. He had been out in single figures three times, but he is still a batsman to be wary of, capable of scoring very quickly too. Indeed if Warner had got in and settled, the target Root set Australia might not have been beyond them. Warner has had as miserable a couple of games as Jason Roy, but, unlike Roy, he is in credit at the bank with more than 6000 Test match runs to his name. It would be foolish to expect his poor form to continue for three more Tests.

Roy’s failures are worrying for England. Perhaps he should move down the order. I would guess however that, having been picked as an opener, he will get at least one more Test in that position. After all, switching him because he has failed in two matches simply takes us back to square one and yet another experimental opening partnership. Joe Denly might of course move up to partner Burns but, though he made a few in both innings at Lord’s, he hasn’t looked much more convincing than Roy. The good thing is that Rory Burns has shown that he possesses the qualities of a genuine Test match opener: patience, concentration and, mostly good judgement of when to play and when to leave.

Joe Root of course needs a big score, for the team, for his own confidence and even for his reputation. Headingley is home ground for him and may therefore be the place to get it. For England the best batting news at Lord’s was the return to form of the middle order: Stokes, Buttler & Bairstow. Stokes made what was in the end a magnificent century, all the more commendable because he was ill-at ease for a long time and scoring more with the edge of his bat rather than its middle. Buttler batted with a restraint and composure – self-denial indeed – against his natural instincts and playing with respect for the situation as well as the bowling. Bairstow’s first innings fifty ensured that England had a defensible total and he played just the right game when he joined Stokes and the time had come to score rapidly.

Two other points should be made. First, Jack Leach looked a genuine Test match slow-bowler, capable of doing the job that Nathan Lyon has done for Australia for several years now. Second, and unusually, England’s fielding, and especially the close catching, were better that Australia’s. Denly’s catch was the most spectacular, but the two that Burns unobtrusively took below his bootlaces were, if not spectacular, the kind which, if not taken, often prove very costly.

So, all in all, England can go to Leeds in better heart than looked likely a week ago. All the same, we should remember that Australia’s batting, even without Smith, isn’t nearly as fragile as some have suggested. Marnus Labuschagne, Smith’s substitute, played an excellent innings; no great surprise for he has already made a thousand runs for Glamorgan this summer. Travis Head has played with good sense and resolution at both Edgbaston and Lord’s , while some day soon David Warner will stay at the wicket and make a big score. The absence of Smith may tilt the balance in favour of England, but Australia have an attack good enough to take 20 wickets, good enough to make at least one English collapse a worrying possibility.