England captain Joe Root said his team is focused on being mentally prepared for the stiff challenge of another Ashes Down Under against Australia as the elongated quarantine for white-ball players and the weather in Brisbane threatens to curtail some of their build-up to the marquee series.
England’s limited-overs stars, selected for the Ashes, who were part of the T20 World Cup in UAE – Jos Buttler, Mark Wood, Jonny Bairstow, Dawid Malan and Chris Woakes – are now out of the 14-day quarantine they were made to go through because of the protocols amid Covid-19 pandemic.
These players will be reuniting with the rest of the England squad and be available for selection for the intra-squad match, with England Lions cricketers included, in Brisbane from November 30.
Apart from these cricketers, support staff members Chris Silverwood, Paul Collingwood, Jeetan Patel and James Foster are now also allowed to link up with the remaining tour contingent.
However, the chances are high that England would still struggle to get ideal preparation under their belt in the intra-squad game because of the rain and bad weather in Brisbane, especially the Gold Coast area where the main Ashes party have been based.
Thus, the intra-squad game with England Lions is not awarded first-class status, with the side think-tank hoping to give each of their Ashes stars as much game time in the middle as possible. This group includes prominent allrounder Ben Stokes, who has not played a red-ball game since touring India in February-March.
“It’s been unusual. Having spent a period of time in quarantine and training within that quarantine phase, and then coming to Brisbane.”
“We haven’t had that three-day game, as we would have liked, but it was always going to be the case that tomorrow was really the first day as a squad that we would get together, with those World Cup guys joining us.”
Root was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
Given the circumstances, Root urged his players to be as mentally prepared for the first Ashes Test on December 8 as possible and not be out of place when facing up to Steve Smith, Pat Cummins and others.
