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Root says England can rewrite WACA script

England skipper optimistic Magellan Ashes Series will hold a twist akin to a Hollywood blockbuster

On the day that England began their most recent – indeed, their only – triumphant Test match at the WACA Ground, cinemagoers were granted their first look at a movie that revolutionised on-screen special effects and spawned a franchise business model more powerful than a locomotive.

"You’ll believe a man can fly," was the catchphrase that accompanied the launch of 'Superman' onto screens on December 15, 1978, so state-of was the artfulness of Christopher Reeve’s green screen aerobatics.

It will require a leap of faith capable of clearing a tall building to imagine the current incarnation of England's Test team are capable of turning around almost 40 years of thumping defeats (and a couple of stoic draws) at the hands of arch-foe Australia in a single bound.


But England's captain Joe Root continues to believe the script for the current series – which his team, like so many before it, trails 0-2 heading into Perth – can be rewritten even though it appears as predictable as the plot line of any superhero story.

"The real thing to hit home here is it’s an opportunity to create history," Root said on Wednesday after his opposition skipper Steve Smith had pointedly noted that England remain but a couple of poor sessions away from surrendering the urn.

"It’s a real chance to flip the dynamics of this series on its head and if we do come away 2-1 from this game, it does blow the series wide open."

Which in itself sounds like an action scene leading to an inevitable comic-book climax.

But it's not simply the crushing roll of recent history that suggests England’s longest winless streak at any Australia Test venue will continue unimpeded, it's the manner in which they’ve repeatedly succumbed in Perth since Mike Brearley led Geoffrey Boycott and the lads to a 166-run win.

Root backs England to respond to 0-2 Ashes deficit

Against what was rated a second-string Australia XI comprising players who had not signed on with Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, in the weeks after the last legal commercial whale hunt was conducted in waters off Western Australia.

In the summers of 1990-91 and 1994-95, England travelled west with the urn already decided and were duly rolled by nine wickets and then 329 runs in what were the final matches of the Test itinerary.

The 1998-99 series saw Alec Stewart’s outfit arrive in Perth buoyed after escaping with a rain-affected draw from the first Test in Brisbane, only to be humbled inside three days at the WACA en route to a 3-1 series defeat.

The subsequent visits to Perth in 2002-03 and 2006-07 were even more calamitous – the first yielding defeat by an innings and 48 runs and the next a brutal 206-run loss after Adam Gilchrist’s cyclonic century, with both matches deciding the fate of the Ashes.

And a few England careers.

Even when Andrew Strauss's men completed England’s first Ashes series win in Australia for 14 years in 2010-11, they suffered their sole defeat of the campaign at the WACA (by the not insubstantial margin of 267 runs).

Then, on the previous tour in 2013-14 that ended in a rare 5-0 whitewash, England’s mission publicly imploded when they were subjected to a 150-run belting that led to Graeme Swann quitting cricket, Stuart Broad hobbled by a scorching Yorker and Matt Prior dropped for the remainder of the series.

Perth, 2013: Bailey's massive Anderson over

Not only did that loss hand back the Ashes to Australia for the first time since 2006-07, it brought to a crashing halt a golden era of England Test cricket during which they had risen to number one in the world and remained undefeated in the Test arena throughout the previous 12 months.

But despite carrying the same scoreline into a potentially decisive Perth Test, Root believes his England squad remains in far better stead than the group of which he was part four years ago mainly because the current group hasn’t become spoiled by the success the class of 2013-14 had enjoyed.

"I think we are in a much better place this time round," Root said when reflecting on the comparative mindset of the two touring parties.

"Guys have a real clear idea of where they want to go and how they look to play.

"I'm not sure that was the same last time.

Smith undecided on XI, praises Handscomb

"They (the team of 2013-14) were a little more shell-shocked at how things turned out because we had a very settled team with a lot of experience fresh from a year when we hadn’t lost a game.

"We had been in control and in command for a long period of time.

"This time round we have a lot of guys who are just coming into Test cricket and it is all quite new to them.

"They are open-minded and aware of what Australia bring to the table and what they will come at us with, and are very clear about how they want to go and do it.

"It is about getting that right on the field.

"If they can do that, we give the side a chance to go on and make a big score or take a cluster of wickets and control the session and hopefully the game."

A tool known in the movie business, given what has come before, as 'suspension of disbelief'.

2017-18 International Fixtures

Magellan Ashes Series

Australia Test squad: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja, Peter Handscomb, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine (wk), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood, Jackson Bird.

England Test squad: Joe Root (c), James Anderson (vc), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jake Ball, Gary Ballance, Stuart Broad, Alastair Cook, Mason Crane, Tom Curran, Ben Foakes, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ben Stokes, Mark Stoneman, James Vince, Chris Woakes.

First Test Australia won by 10 wickets. Scorecard

Second Test Australia won by 120 runs (Day-Night). Scorecard

Third Test WACA Ground, December 14-18. Tickets

Fourth Test MCG, December 26-30. Tickets

Fifth Test SCG, January 4-8 (Pink Test). Tickets

Gillette ODI Series v England

First ODI MCG, January 14. Tickets

Second ODI Gabba, January 19. Tickets

Third ODI SCG, January 21. Tickets

Fourth ODI Adelaide Oval, January 26. Tickets

Fifth ODI Perth Stadium, January 28. Tickets

Prime Minister's XI

PM's XI v England Manuka Oval, February 2. Tickets

Gillette T20 trans-Tasman Tri-Series

First T20I Australia v NZ, SCG, February 3. Tickets

Second T20I – Australia v England, Blundstone Arena, February 7. Tickets

Third T20I – Australia v England, MCG, February 10. Tickets

Fourth T20I – NZ v England, Wellington, February 14

Fifth T20I – NZ v Australia, Eden Park, February 16

Sixth T20I – NZ v England, Seddon Park, February 18

Final – TBC, Eden Park, February 21