England swing the axe for Boxing Day

England have made a Boxing Day Test overhaul with four players from their bruising defeat in Adelaide making way, as Joe Root demanded better performances from his team with the Ashes on the line in Melbourne.

Rory Burns, Ollie Pope, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes have all been omitted from the England XI for the third Vodafone Ashes Test at the MCG.

Batters Zac Crawley and Jonny Bairstow will feature for the first time in this series while Mark Wood and Jack Leach have both been recalled, England announced today.

England XI: Haseeb Hameed, Zac Crawley, Dawid Malan, Joe Root (c), Ben Stokes, Jonathan Bairstow, Jos Buttler (wk), Mark Wood, Ollie Robinson, Jack Leach, Jimmy Anderson

Criticised for the sameness of their bowling attack featuring five seam bowlers all of similar pace in Adelaide, England will go into the MCG contest with more variety with the pacey Wood and left-arm spinner Leach returning.

Burns (51 runs at 12.75) and Pope (48 runs at 12) are the casualties from England's troubles at the crease in this series with the visitors having been bowled out for fewer than 300 in each of their four innings so far.

Their replacements will need to show they are more capable than they have been in Tests this year; Crawley has scored 156 runs at 11.14 in seven Tests in 2021, while Bairstow has 351 runs at 25.06 over the same period.

Woakes, from No.8, has scored more runs than Burns and Pope in this series combined but his lack of penetration with ball in hand has seen him pick up only three wickets at 76.00 and now has a bowling average of 54.28 in Tests outside England.

With Australia picking an MCG specialist in surprise debutant Scott Boland, the visitors will also take some comfort in fact at least one member of their attack can boast promising returns at the venue.

Robinson, who with seven wickets at 24.28 for the series has been England's most threatening bowler, took seven wickets (including current Test opener Marcus Harris) in an England Lions game against Australia A in February last year.

Image Id: B97271446D78465890D63CAF02A0BBB0 Image Caption: Robinson took seven wickets at the MCG against Australia A in February, 2020 // Getty

Root, whose frank post-Adelaide Test comments preceded a similarly upfront team meeting described as a "kick up the bum", has made it clear his side has so far fallen well short of expectations.

"The two performances we have put out have not been good enough," Root told reporters on Friday. "It's been basic mistakes.

"We have addressed it, spoken about it and I expect to be a lot better.

"… it has been a mental thing for us. Not through lack of confidence, but understanding the conditions and sniffing out the danger. I think we can be a bit smarter about that.

"We addressed that at the end of the game. We know we need to be better and we have full confidence in our own abilities to put it into practice this week."

Leach was contentiously left out for the second Test after a chastening introduction to bowling spin down under at the Gabba, conceding 102 from his 13 overs with only the wicket of Marnus Labuschagne to show for his first outing on Australian soil.

Root was critical of his bowlers after their 275-run defeat in the second Test, suggesting they had needed to be "brave" and bowl fuller rather than being content with bowling shorter and conceding fewer runs.

In turn, the England skipper came under fire for not being able to influence the lengths his attack had bowled, most notably from Ricky Ponting who said if the bowlers "are not going to listen, you take them off, simple as that".

Root said he was unfazed by those "external comments" but stood by his assessment.

"That art of trying to take 10 wickets is to try and build pressure, understand how you're going to be create pressure through keeping the scoreboard quiet, but also being brave enough to try and hit lengths that will take wickets and create chances," said Root.

"I do think on occasions we got that slightly wrong.

"It's not something you can really fault our bowlers on too often because they are exceptional. There's some world-class performers in there.

"It's not about singling players out or putting the blame on one department of our group. Collectively we weren't good enough.

"I was asked some direct questions after the game about our lengths and I answered them. If you had asked me about our batting I would have said something similar."

Vodafone Men's Ashes

Squads

Australia: Pat Cummins (c), Steve Smith (vc), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner

England: Joe Root (c), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Schedule

First Test: Australia won by nine wickets

Second Test: Australia won by 275 runs

Third Test: December 26-30, MCG

Fourth Test: January 5-9, SCG

Fifth Test: January 14-18, Blundstone Arena