1 Draw strength from comebacks past

Joe Root’s England have made a habit of losing one Test in a series. In his collection of home results Root has a 4-1, a 3-1, a 2-1, a 1-1 and now a 0-1. The only visiting team not to get a Test off him are Ireland, who came close. The good news for the England fan, forever fretful, is that each of these home defeats has been followed by a victory.

England just need to do what they did last year, after losing the first Test of the summer to Pakistan: make three changes, bowl well, bat solidly, win comfortably. Now, as then, the second Test is one they cannot afford to lose. The difference is the extra pressure that comes with the Ashes – but England’s World Cup stars have already played four must-win matches this summer, under immense pressure, and won the lot.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Comeback kings: England celebrate their comeback win over South Africa at The Oval in 2017. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

2 Pick Archer

Three months in, Jofra Archer is already having a very interesting international career. He started the World Cup as a novice and ended it as England’s spearhead with 20 wickets. He then became perhaps the first England cricketer ever to be rested from a Test before he had played one. At Edgbaston Root and Trevor Bayliss erred on the side of caution by leaving Archer out when he was considered fit by Jason Gillespie, his coach at Sussex and fellow member of the fast bowlers’ union. Asked to prove his fitness by playing for Sussex 2nds, Archer promptly turned into Superman, taking six wickets and making a hundred in the same day.

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He is now a near-certainty for Lord’s, where he needs to treat the Australians not as he did when he last faced them there (one for 56), but as he did when they met again at Edgbaston in the World Cup semi-final (two for 32). Ideally he will do to them what Steve Harmison famously did at Lord’s in 2005 and leave a few dents in their helmets, not to mention their self-esteem.

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3 Hand Root and Bayliss fewer options

Ed Smith, England’s chief selector, sees it as his job to give the captain and coach options for the final XI. At Edgbaston he may have given them too many: a squad of 14, containing seven seamers. Root and Bayliss were like children in an ice-cream parlour, spurning all the sharp flavours – Archer’s polished pace, Olly Stone’s raw power, Sam Curran’s left-arm swing – in favour of vanilla, mid-80s right-armers. The seam attack of Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Ben Stokes had lost their previous two home Tests as a unit (against India at Trent Bridge last year and West Indies at Headingley 2017) and duly added a third, though they could not be blamed for Anderson’s injury.

Smith may well decide to get tough, drop Moeen Ali and Joe Denly, and hand Root and Bayliss a squad of only 12. The first XI almost pick themselves: Burns, Roy, Root, Stokes (bowling less because batting at four), Buttler, Bairstow, Curran, Woakes, Archer, Broad, Leach. With Stone pulling up lame, the spare seamer can be Toby Roland-Jones, who knows the Lord’s slope, made a sparkling start to his Test career in 2017 and is now taking five-fors again after a serious injury.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joe Root and Trevor Bayliss may have been given too many options when handed a squad of 14 for the first Test. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

4 Bring back Buttler’s brain

One minute Jos Buttler was England’s man for all seasons; the next he was demoted to allow Stokes to resume the Test vice-captaincy. This was baffling, as Buttler had done nothing wrong and Stokes, for all his strengths, had unmistakably let the team down with the Bristol incident. If the argument was that Stokes had shown leadership in the World Cup final, well, Buttler had too. Root compounded the error at Edgbaston by shifting Buttler to short-leg, so that England’s best cricket brain, after Eoin Morgan, was no longer part of the conversation in the slips. It surely makes more sense to stick Rory Burns at boot hill and get Buttler back into the engine room.

For his part Buttler has to make some runs. He managed 5 and 1 in the first Test, joining Bairstow and Moeen in the melancholy club of gifted strokemakers who have yet to reach double figures in a Test this summer. Between them, they’ve batted ten times and made 33 all out. Buttler, since his recall in May 2018, remains second only to Root for Test runs and top of the class for Test fifties (nine, to Root’s six), and he recovered from an equally poor start last year. But if he and Bairstow flop again, one of them will surely give way to Ben Foakes, who brings more glue.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jos Buttler catches Peter Siddle at Edgbaston, but he would be better deployed in the slips. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images via Reuters

5 Call Karl and say sorry

After the Lord’s Test against Ireland Root complained about the pitch being “substandard”. It was certainly a green top and Root was right to feel that the game “wasn’t even close to a fair contest” between bat and ball. Saying so in public seemed hard on the MCC’s new groundsman, Karl McDermott, and also uncharacteristic of Root – who may now be kicking himself, as a piece of green unpleasant land is exactly what he could do with to see off Steve Smith.

On a flat pitch Smith is Bradman revisited but, on something more spicy, he is as wobbly as the next man. At Edgbaston and Trent Bridge in 2015 he made 7, 8, 6 and 5, falling to Steven Finn (twice) and Broad (also twice), thanks to three nicks and a slice. There is a Barmy Army chant in there somewhere.