England have made four changes to the playing XI for the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Jonny Bairstow, Jack Leach, Zak Crawley, and Mark Wood will replace Ollie Pope, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, and Chris Woakes in the team after being down to 0-2 in the ongoing Ashes.

While Pope and Burns scored only 48 and 51 runs respectively in the first two Test matches, Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad, meanwhile, claimed three and two wickets in the series respectively as well. While Woakes has an average of 54.28 away from home and 55.61 in Australia, Broad had an average of 37.88 in Australia as well.

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As far as the series is concerned, Australia have already won the first two Tests in the ongoing Ashes series and taken a 2-0 lead in the five-match series so far. Meanwhile, former England opener Michael Atherton has shared his views on the inclusion of Zak Crawley for the third Ashes Test. Atherton questioned the decision of the management too as he finds it “ridiculous”.

Michael Atherton wrote in his column for The Times: “Zak Crawley is in consideration to replace Rory Burns; Jonny Bairstow likewise for Ollie Pope, with Mark Wood and Jack Leach potentially coming into the attack for Chris Woakes and one other. One would feel especially for Crawley, a young player making his way in the game and potentially asked to open in a Test match having not batted for more than 2½ months. Ridiculous, really. No batsman, bar Joe Root and Dawid Malan, could complain if dropped, but the lack of cricket played by the reserves must give pause to the understandable urge to change.”

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England XI for third Ashes Test: Haseeb Hameed, Zak Crawley, Dawid Malan, Joe Root (c), Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler (wk), Mark Wood, Ollie Robinson, Jack Leach, James Anderson.