Ashes 2021: England announce playing XI for Boxing Day Test; make four changes

Team England have announced their Boxing Day Test squad and have made four changes to their XI that took the field during their defeat in the Ashes 2021 Adelaide Test. Rory Burns, Ollie Pope, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes have been left out with opener Zac Crawley, wicket-keeper batter Jonny Bairstow, pacer Mark Wood and spinner Jack Leach coming in. 

Team England were criticised for going all-out seam in their bowling attack picking five pacers and thus they have turned back to Jack Leach for the MCG contest. Mark Wood too adds great pace and can replace Woakes who did not have a great Test match. 

Joe Burns (51 runs at an average of 12.75) and Ollie Pope (48 runs at an average of 12) have been dropped for their poor show with England hoping that Zac Crawley and Jonny Bairstow can put up a show. The Brits' have failed to cross the 300 mark in each of their four innings so far and will look to turn things around. 

England's XI for the Boxing Day 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.

James Anderson rues missed chances, says team did not bat well enough on one of the flattest surfaces

James Anderson thinks that team England failed to perform with the bat on what was a flat surface "We did not bat well enough on a pitch where the data said it was one of the flattest Adelaide surfaces ever produced and the pink ball did the least it has ever done in a day-night game," James Anderson wrote in his column for The Daily Telegraph.

He further went on to add that the bowlers did hit the right lengths but could have done better but yet created a few chances, but did not get assistance from their batters "From a bowlers' point of view, you want to be hitting the right lengths all the time. We did our best on the first two days to do that... Maybe we could have gone a touch fuller at times, but we still created quite a few changes that were not taken," Anderson added.

Image: AP