Intense hit-out ends year of planning

Last February, at the end of the Australia Test summer, Tim Paine was asked when he might cast his thoughts towards the upcoming Ashes tour of the UK and he answered instantly "six months ago".

Which means a year of planning and plotting, visualising and worrying that culminated in this week's carefully choreographed practice match in Southampton is now effectively behind him, and the battle proper awaits.

Australia's men's Ashes squad – which seems likely to number 17 when announced tomorrow lunchtime (UK time) – will make the two-and-a-half-hour coach ride to Birmingham on Saturday to begin final preparations for the opening Ashes Test starting next Thursday.

The idea to bring together 25 of Australia's top-ranked players and pit them against one another in a warm-up fixture was to ensure those selected to defend the Ashes were closely knit and match-hardened.

Having scored the decisive run to lead the Graeme Hick XII to a five-wicket win in that game, which was dominated by seam bowlers due to a pitch that was challenging and (occasionally) dangerous, Paine boasts an unblemished record as Test captain on British soil.

But he concedes, despite all the restless energy he's expended in preparing for Australia's Ashes defence, the sole warm-up game didn’t quite deliver everything he'd hoped for and hard work therefore awaits over coming days.

Despite the difficulties faced by all top-order batters – with the notable exception of today's stand-out Cameron Bancroft (93 not out from 194 balls) – Paine believed the historic exercise that took precedence over the traditional county warm-up game was invaluable.

"I know the scores weren't flattering but batters stuck at it really well, and gutsed it out on something that was, at times, bordering on dangerous," Paine said citing the pitch that yielded variable bounce and exaggerated seam movement.

"We were happy with how the batters applied themselves, it was just one of those wickets where you were always going to get one with your name on it.

"If you looked at the scores, you'd say it was a really ordinary batting display but I think people that were here would appreciate how hard work that was, when it's seaming both ways, up and down, it can be really difficult. 

"Blokes were getting hit on the body, it was  played at a really high intensity and although the runs didn't flow, I think guys will take a lot out of it.

"Bowling-wise, I thought our bowlers were excellent throughout the whole game. 

"They were relentless - obviously the wicket gave them a bit, which kept them pretty interested most of the time - but I thought all of our bowlers showed really good signs in all parts of the game."

With the scheduled four-day warm-up game concluding midway through day three, tomorrow will be all about the naming of the Ashes squad that has prompted so much speculation over the past year or more.

Paine spoke with the national selection panel – chair Trevor Hohns and men's team coach Justin Langer who are both in Southampton, as well as Greg Chappell via phone hook-up in Australia – on Thursday morning UK time.

It is understood the names and final number of the Ashes tourists were then finalised later in the morning, and each player among the 25 gathered in Southampton will learn his fate tomorrow morning shortly before the public unveiling.

As Langer had pointed out prior to the warm-up game commencing last Tuesday, most of the places within that likely 17-man squad were effectively filled before a ball was bowled at the Ageas Bowl.

"There weren't too many unanswered questions coming in (to the warm-up game), we knew every player really well in the 25-man squad that is here," Paine said today.

"So it was more about the hit-out, having a really competitive game of cricket so we can get to Edgbaston next week having already had a really hard, difficult hit-out under our belts.

"That will make the adjustment to Test intensity a little bit easier for us."

The player to mount a late surge for inclusion in the final touring party was Cameron Bancroft, who was ostensibly locked in a duel with incumbent Joe Burns for the auxiliary opener's role behind David Warner and Marcus Harris.

After Burns unluckily deflected the first ball he received yesterday on to his stumps, Bancroft withstood everything hurled at him on the spiteful pitch for four hours to remain undefeated (if bruised and battered) at game's end.

“I thought Bangers played unbelievably well," Paine said of the opener whose most recent Test was the third Test at Cape Town in 2018 which cost him a nine-month suspension.

"To get basically a hundred on that wicket was an unbelievable effort. 

"I thought what it showed is Bangers’ toughness. 

"The reason the guys were getting stuck on the crease a lot is because the odd ball was jumping up at them.

"That can play on a guy's mind and mess with a batsmen’s feet, particularly when they are bowling the speeds that guys were.

"But that just shows the mental application and toughness that Bangers has got, to keep going forward, to keep wearing balls on the body. 

"The boys think he has a bit of a screw loose, but he seems to enjoy getting hit on the body - it seems to make him bat better."

Having eyed the coming Ashes campaign for so long, Paine might have justifiably feared his aspiration had been cruelly cut short when he was rapped on the left hand by a stinging delivery from Mitchell Starc soon after beginning his innings this afternoon.

However, after hastily removing his batting glove and inspecting the damage while Bancroft – who had himself copped a blow to the head earlier in the day from Starc – he resumed batting and remained eight not out at game's end.

That was the level of competitive intensity with which the practice match was fought, and Paine indicated there will be a couple of similarly combative training days in Birmingham before the Ashes rival square-off on Thursday morning.

"We will certainly be having some intense days, that’s what we want to do," Paine said of the pre-Test practice regime that that begins on Sunday morning at Edgbaston

"We want to make sure that guys are testing each other. 

"We always have one Test training session at full-tilt because we want to make sure this squad is hitting the ground running."

2019 Qantas Ashes Tour of England

Tour match: Hick XII v Haddin XII, July 23-26

First Test: Edgbaston, August 1-5

Tour match: Australians v Worcestershire, August 7-9

Second Test: Lord's, August 14-18

Third Test: Headingley, August 22-26

Tour match: Australians v Derbyshire, August 29-31

Fourth Test: Old Trafford, September 4-8

Fifth Test: The Oval, September 12-16