England reveal Ashes blueprint only for Mark Wood injury scare to threaten ripping it up
Eight days before the curtain rises on the Ashes in the sold-out enormodome that is Perth’s Optus Stadium, England’s campaign began in semi-earnest a few actual kilometres and a million metaphorical miles away in front of a few dozen spectators in leafy, sedate Lilac Hill.What followed was intriguing, at times even encouraging, but for news of a potentially significant injury, and, while Ben Stokes had promised “balls-to-the-wall” action, it was more jaws to the floor as news of Mark Wood’s stiff left hamstring filtered through in mid-afternoon.England had revealed their blueprint for the first Test in naming a lineup featuring five seam options including Stokes himself and no full-time spinner, with Shoaib Bashir relegated to the Lions team.But however carefully it is prepared, sometimes a blueprint is destined to become nothing but shredder-fodder.With Wood’s participation in next Friday’s opening Test now in doubt and Bashir’s suddenly looking more likely, certainty has slipped through English fingers much as a few catches did across a breezy day by the Swan River.
Brendon McCullum might have been expecting to be given food for thought, but these will not have been the thoughts he was looking for.While one England player was sparking fitness concerns another was dispelling them.Stokes was the most successful as well as, alongside Gus Atkinson, the hardest-working of England’s bowlers and looked in impeccable fettle in bowling 16 overs and taking six wickets, all of them with short-pitched deliveries, all but one caught behind the wicket on the legside.“I think he was a little bit surprised,” Harry Brook said, “that everybody got out the same way.” Jofra Archer, the third of England’s trifecta of fragile fast bowlers alongside Wood and Stokes, had less impact but seemed no less fluent, and was midway through his 13th over when he ended the innings by dismissing Matt Potts.
Beyond Stokes and the wicketless Wood every England bowler snared a single victim as a Lions team including five members of the Ashes squad – Bashir joined by Jacob Bethell, Will Jacks, Potts and, notionally at least, Brydon Carse (who sat out the first day, presumably much of it literally, with a stomach upset but is expected to contribute on Friday) – ended their innings on 382, a few minutes before the scheduled close.Against England’s strongest available bowlers but on a pitch Brook described as “a little bit slow” the Lions finished with five half-centurions.But perhaps the most notable contribution with the bat was brief and undistinguished, as another short innings extended Bethell’s odds of elbowing Ollie Pope out of the first team.Of Bethell’s past 10 knocks for England only one has lasted more than the 17 balls he rather awkwardly faced on his way to scoring two runs here before becoming Stokes’s second victim, and none has yielded more than 26 runs.He may not currently be in the first team but if any No 3 ended the day with their position in peril it was Bethell himself, as the rising star of England’s young batting constellation.
Sign up to The SpinSubscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s actionafter newsletter promotionThe Lions’ top scorers included Durham’s Ben McKinney, who turned 21 a few weeks ago and opened the innings in assured style before becoming Josh Tongue’s only scalp having scored 67, and Somerset’s Thomas Rew, who turns 18 in a couple of weeks and scored 55 before becoming Atkinson’s.Jordan Cox, whose place in the Test side Bethell snaffled after the Essex player broke a thumb in New Zealand a year ago – during another one-off warm-up game, as it happens – scored 53 before being tempted to tuck in to one of Stokes’s diet of short balls.While England may decide, should picking Wood ultimately represent too much of a risk, to maintain the balance in their blueprint by simply replacing him with Carse, Bashir may look more appealing given the frequent marmalising that Joe Root’s part-time spin received.Will Jacks scored 84 off 85 balls with three sixes, all of them off Root’s bowling, while Potts produced an eye-catching late-innings cameo, motoring to his half-century in 40 balls by hitting Root for four successive sixes and then, in the following over, pulling Archer for another.Suitably encouraged, he made no attempt to decelerate and duly top-edged Archer’s next delivery with a wildly swinging bat to a back-pedalling Zak Crawley at slip.
“We obviously haven’t spent much time together in the recent few months, so just to get back together as a group and get out on the pitch, it was a successful day,” said Brook,“Hopefully tomorrow will be another gorgeous day in Perth, and hopefully we can pile the runs on,It’s not just going to be easy – we’ve got some awesome bowlers and the Lions boys too, there’s a lot of their players here and some bowl rockets as well,It’s not going to be light work out there,It’s going to be a challenge and they’re going to want to prove a point.
So it’s going to be a test and hopefully we can get some decent runs.”
Polpa position: budget tinned tomatoes score well in Choice taste test
Consumer advocacy group Choice has taste-tested 18 brands of chopped and diced tomatoes, finding three cheaper cans outranked many more expensive brands.Four judges ranked tinned tomatoes from Australian supermarkets and retailers, assessing them on flavour, texture, appearance and aroma – with flavour accounting for the biggest percentage of overall scores.Italian brand Mutti’s Polpa Organic chopped tomatoes, costing $2.95 for a 400g tin, was awarded the highest score of 80%. It was the most expensive product tested, described by judge Fiona Mair (who also judges at the Sydney Royal Fine Food Show) as having “an earthy fresh tomato aroma, really rich juice and flesh”
Three plant-based chocolate mousse recipes by Philip Khoury
Mousse au chocolat is one of the most exquisite ways to enjoy chocolate – so here are three recipes that offer it in different textures and levels of chocolate intensity. Each one works beautifully with dark chocolate containing 65-80% cocoa solids. Blends with no specific origin can be further rounded out with one teaspoon of vanilla paste or the seeds from a vanilla bean.Once the mousses have been prepared, they can be frozen and gently defrosted in the refrigerator. Top with chocolate shavings, cocoa nibs or a dusting of unsweetened cocoa powder for texture and contrast
Don’t pour that olive brine down the drain – it’s a flavour bomb | Waste not
When I taste-tested olives for the food filter column a few months ago, it reminded me that the brine is an ingredient in its own right. This intensely savoury liquid adds umami depth to whatever it touches, and, beyond seasoning soups and stews, it can also be used to make salamoia, the aromatic brine that’s traditionally used to top focaccia and create that perfect salty crust.Pouring olive brine down the sink is like washing pure flavour down the drain. Instead, save it to supercharge your focaccia, creating a beautifully flavoured, salted crust that elevates an ordinary loaf into something extraordinary. While I’m partial to rosemary and olives as toppings, this focaccia delivers heaps of flavour even when kept completely plain and simple
Jelly’s back! Here are three worth making – and three that should wobble off to the bin
Jelly has a dowdy reputation, but it may well be the perfect food for the Instagram age: when it works, it’s incredibly photogenic, so who cares what it tastes like?There can be no other explanation for recent claims that savoury jellies – the most lurid and off-putting of dishes, reminiscent of the worst culinary efforts of the 1950s – are suddenly fashionable. This resurgence comes, according to the New York Times, “at a time when chefs are feeling pressure to produce viral visuals and molecular gastronomy is old hat”.The notion that jelly is having a moment is actually a perennial threat: this time last year it was reported that supermarket jelly cube sales were rising sharply, while vintage jelly moulds were experiencing a five-fold increase in online sales. And it was 15 years ago that the high-end “jellymongers” Bompas & Parr – known for their elaborate architectural creations – first published their book on the subject.People who are sceptical about jelly are often put off by its origins
Australian supermarket wheat crackers taste test: ‘All the reviewers knew which one was the real deal’
Nicholas Jordan risks it for the biscuits, sampling 19 wheat crackers in the driest taste test yetIf you value our independent journalism, we hope you’ll consider supporting us todayGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailI’ve been wanting to write this article for over a year but I’ve been too intimidated and confused to start. There are several hundred supermarket products that could be called a cracker. Imagine a taste test with 100 versions of the same thing. Do I have the stomach space or mental bandwidth to process that much? Otherwise, how do I decide what’s in or out? Even if I did, how do I rule what is a cracker or not? How do you determine the criteria for tasting something rarely eaten on its own? Do you rate the crackers for deliciousness or compatibility? Are those two things even that different?Then there’s the anxiety of spending several days agonising over all that, and conducting a taste test only to arrive at the conclusion that Jatz are great. Do people want to read an article about why Sir Donald Bradman is better than whoever the second-best-ever cricketer is?Instead of answering all those questions, I could just have a lovely afternoon making my way through 17 kinds of chocolate or many iced coffees
Same sheet, different dish: how to use up excess lasagne sheets
I’ve accidentally bought too many boxes of dried lasagne sheets. How can I use them up? Jemma, by email This is sounding all too familiar to Jordon Ezra King, the man behind the A Curious Cook newsletter. “It’s funny Jemma asks this,” he says, “because I was in this exact same situation earlier this year after over-catering for a client dinner.” The first thing to say is there’s no immediate rush, he adds: “It sounds obvious, but you can keep the boxes for a long time.” Fortunately for Jemma and her shopping mishap, however, lasagne sheets are also flexible, and their shape doesn’t have to dictate what you do with them
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Ashes injury scare for England with Mark Wood in hospital for scan on hamstring
England reveal Ashes blueprint only for Mark Wood injury scare to threaten ripping it up
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