The Ashes are on the line in the Boxing Day Test as Australia and England head to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the traditional Test match, one which in this series forms the third game of the five scheduled.
Australia lead 2-0 after another emphatic win in Adelaide and they know if they avoid defeat here they will keep hold of the urn. England are in the last chance saloon. Anything but a win in Melbourne will mean they are unable to regain what they went to Australia to reclaim.
Australia
They might be 2-0 up in the series with two emphatic winning margins in the opening two matches, but I don’t think we’ve seen their best cricket yet. They will be delighted that they haven’t had to show it but they have ridden their luck a little bit at the same time. In both their first innings they have played and missed quite a few times and looked quite scratchy at the crease, especially at the top of the order. When it has clicked though they have been more than good enough.
Where they haven’t needed to improve much is with the ball. Australia have been all over England like a rash with the exception of one partnership. They haven’t been flawless in the field which will have disappointed them but when you consider the lack of red ball cricket for those who were away at the T20 World Cup, it would be asking a lot for them not to have things to improve on. They will be looking for that complete performance now which wins then the series outright not just retains the urn.
England
There hasn’t been much for England to be positive about in the opening two matches. When a bit of fight and a rearguard effort on the final day in Adelaide is being lauded you know there are problems. That is the basic expectation of an international cricketer so for it to be a highlight tells us plenty. The only other bright spot for England has been the partnership and batting of Dawid Malan and Joe Root so there is clearly plenty of work to do.
England need their top order to start firing to give themselves a chance in this match. In the main their middle order have made contributions in this series, although not with the mountain of runs they need. The other thing that has to happen here and now is England have to pitch the ball up and bowl better. They need to pick their best attack and stop overthinking everything and then give it all they have to try and keep the series alive.
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Team News
Australia have confirmed that Josh Hazlewood still isn’t fit to return. They will make two changes with Pat Cummins returning in place of Michael Neser and Scott Boland coming in for his debut with Jhye Richardson sitting this one out.
England have confirmed that they will make four changes with Zak Crawley coming in for Rory Burns, Jonny Bairstow replacing Ollie Pope, Mark Wood taking the place of Chris Woakes and Jack Leach back in for Stuart Broad.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of this third match to begin with. The first of them is the player performance of the England captain Joe Root who I’m expecting to have a big match after his defiant interviews both after the second Test debacle and ahead of this third Test. You don’t very often hear batsmen claim they are in brilliant touch like Root did and while such words might be setting himself up for a fall, nobody will know his game as well as Root himself so he must really think he is close to something big. He has a performance line of 106.5 for this match and with two innings he could easily reach that with the bat alone, but even though England have recalled Jack Leach, I still expect Root to bowl a bit when the multiple Aussie left-handers are at the crease. He’s also a scoring threat in the slips so I like the over for his performance.
The other bet I like is for Pat Cummins to be the man of the match. He is loved out in Australia and rightly so. He’s a class act with the ball and is someone who can change the course of an innings with the bat in hand as well. With Australia playing Scott Boland as a debutant you would think more of the wickets will go the way of either Cummins or Starc but I think in the main the England batters have played Starc well in this series. Cummins took seven wickets in Brisbane and this is a good ground for him. He has 21 wickets in four Tests here at 18.71 apiece compared to his career average of 21.23. He also has his top score with the bat on this ground and averages 19.16 with the bat as opposed to 16.36 overall. Australia are huge favourites to win the series here and the 12/1 that Cummins is the chief reason for the win looks big to me.
Tips
Back J.Root’s Performance – Over 106.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betfair
Back him here:
Back P.Cummins Man of the Match for a 1/10 stake at 13.00 with Bet365
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