England are in line to bring back Stuart Broad and James Anderson for the second Ashes Test in Adelaide says Chris Silverwood, England's head coach. Anderson was left out of the Gabba Test to manage his workload ahead of the pink-ball Test in Adelaide, while England decided to opt for Jack Leach instead of Broad on the morning of the first Test that England lost by nine wickets to concede a 0-1 lead in the five-match series.
“Jimmy will be fit and ready to go for the second Test, as will Stuart,” Silverwood said on Sunday (December 12). “They are available. Certainly, from an experience point of view, with the bowlers we've got heaps of experience so I'm happy with that. The guys have already been training with the pink ball behind the scenes. And what we have got is a very skilful set of bowlers. We have talent and we still have two of the best up our sleeve as well.”
The decision to pick Leach ahead of Broad attracted more criticism after Leach's returns of 1 for 102 in 13 overs. “Stuart has been great, to be honest,” Silverwood said. “Obviously he was disappointed not to be playing but he understood that this is a long series. Everybody will put their hand up to do the hard work out there and he is ready to do that now. We had good conversations with Stuart before any decisions were made and he was 100 per cent on board.
“I've not told anyone they are playing yet. We will have some sore bodies from this Test and we'll make decisions from there.”
England went down comprehensively in the first Test within four days and were even penalised with five points off the World Test Championship apart from being docked 100% of their match fee for maintaining a slow over-rate. While Silverwood said losing the points hurt them the most, he said the team was looking ahead.
“We had a good chat in the dressing-room after,” he said. “There are obvious areas we need to improve on, such as holding our catches and building big partnerships. Obviously they were hurting, but there is belief they can win this series. We have been in this position before. We have gone 1-0 down and then bounced back. We have the players here that can match the Australians. The confidence is there that we can compete with Australia, and that's exactly what we intend to do.
“What hurts the most is the Test championship points, because we are competing to get in the final,” said Silverwood. “It was our first Test for a while, and we had not had that warm-up game, so the guys were not used to getting around all the time, and it was hot out there. It is something we will talk about. There is no hiding from it.”