Australia is a good team, but certainly beatable: Shane Bond

Former New Zealand speedster, Shane Bond, is currently with the English side for the upcoming Ashes 2017-18 assignment. Bond is serving team England in the capacity of the bowling coach for the mega cricketing event. He will be with the English team till the second Test match, following which, he will be leaving for his duties with the Brisbane Heat in the BBL this season.

Much like all the members of the England camp, even Shane Bond is very excited for the mega clash. The first Ashes Test commences on November 23 at the Gabba, Brisbane. Australia have not lost any Test at the venue in the last 28 years. Bond pretty well knows this but reckons that the Aussies are beatable. He believes that the lower middle-order of the Australian team can succumb to the pressure.

“We know they’re a good team in their own conditions, no doubt about that, and they’re full of good players but they’re certainly a beatable team,” quoted Shane Bond.

“There’s some players from five down in that order who are under a lot of pressure going into this test match because the public over here aren’t overly happy with parts of the selection. They’ve shown a willingness to wield the axe and sometimes that can be tough for players to play under,” he added.

On England’s bowling might

Shane Bond further spoke about the English bowling attack. He noted that the Australian team has a strong bowling order but the English team is not far behind either. He feels that the Australian team can come under pressure if the English batsmen bat for long periods of time. He remarked that the likes of Chris Woakes have the ability to scalp big wickets.

Also, the addition of Chris Overton and Jake Ball to the side is a handy option for the visitors. Among others, there is the vast experience of Stuart Broad and James Anderson. In addition to them, there is also a certain Moeen Ali, who can be a very useful dark horse.

“We’ve got the bowling group and we also know we’re one bowler up on the Australians, They’re a strong bowling group but there’s only four of them. If we can bat for a long period of time it can have a knock-on effect for the rest of the series,” mentioned Bond.

“Chris Woakes has had an outstanding start, got a lot of wickets, swung the ball and bowled fast; Craig Overton got steep bounce and is a handful and Jake Ball is a 140kmh bowler who moves the ball around and gets good bounce. He had an ankle niggle but was probably our best bowler up to that point. There’s certainly enough in our bowling attack, when you combine them with Jimmy and Stu and Moeen [Ali], that we can cause problems for Australia,” remarked the Kiwi pacer.