Given the amount of amazing cricket that has already been played this summer, you could be forgiven for not realising that The Ashes begins on Thursday, but that is exactly what will happen when England and Australia get it on for the first of five matches with the series opener coming from Edgbaston.
Just 18 days after England hit the heights to win an epic World Cup, they will begin their quest for the ultimate summer. Having been knocked out of that tournament by England at this venue in the semi-final, Australia will be smarting for some revenge.
England
I don’t know if a four-day Test match can be classed as much of a warm up for a series with the intensity of this one, but that is what England underwent when they took on Ireland at Lord’s. We can’t ignore the fact that they made hard work of it, but when you factor in three of their key men weren’t in action, and a number of those who were clearly hadn’t come back down to earth from their World Cup exploits, I’m not sure what we can take from that match, other than to question what the point of it was.
England will know they are going to have to be at their best in this series, in particular their engine room with the bat. If they have a strength with the willow it is lower down their batting and that is a spot where they can take advantage. It goes without saying that with the difficulties they are having with the bat that their bowlers simply have to turn up and be counted.
Australia
Breaking with normal tradition, Australia chose to play their warm up match among their squad and their A side who were over here touring. To say it wasn’t really what they were hoping for would be an understatement and much like England, you ended up wondering what they will take out of the exercise, and other than to confirm the fringes of their squad you wonder what the point of it really was.
We knew going into that warm up match that their middle order was ropey looking and that their bowling attack is likely to have to carry them through the series and four days of cricket later, that’s still the case. If anything, it reaffirmed that their top four are going to have to score a lot of runs in this series, but again, did we think anything else?
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Team News
England have confirmed that James Anderson is fit so he joins Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad with the ball. Jofra Archer and Sam Curran miss out. Rory Burns and Jason Roy will open up in their first Ashes Test match.
Australia haven’t confirmed their side but there is a strong rumour going round that Mitchell Starc will not be included in it. Mitchell Marsh is looking to come into the middle order but Travis Head is expected to keep his place.
Betting
I’m not going too mad in the opening match of the series. I want to see how the sides match up against each other before I go too deep into the match betting but there are a couple that I like the look of. One which I think will win and another which offers a value alternative should we fall on the wrong side of one of those crazy sessions, which are going to come along in this series.
I think England win this first match. They love it at Edgbaston, have a great record there and get their most support there. Australia on the other hand have issues here. It is where their grip in 2005 began to slip and they have already lost the semi-final of the World Cup on this ground, offering up comfortably their worst performance. They’ve not actually won a game of cricket on this ground since 2001 which is quite a statistic. I don’t expect England to have this series their own way but they’ve picked Edgbaston first up for a reason and I expect them to make it count.
This is Chris Woakes’ home ground so I would imagine he’ll be well up for going well with the bat and even though he is down to bat at nine in this match I think it is worth taking the 33/1 in case we see one of those English collapses that do sometimes happen at the start of a series. Woakes has been in decent touch with the bat this summer and with his place among the bowlers probably the most vulnerable he’ll want to show his worth in all departments. We don’t lose a lot if he is outscored like he should be so I’ll play the Warwickshire man in this one.
Tips
Back England to win 1st Test for a 4/10 stake at 1.95 with Boylesports
Back them here:
Back C.Woakes Top England Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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