The dust has just about settled on Australia’s thrilling first Test victory at Edgbaston, and already there are worrying noises coming out of the England camp. The cornerstone of Bazball has been Brendon McCullum’s ability to persuade his players to buy into his style of play, with captain Ben Stokes very much leading from the front. The batsmen have played with freedom and without fear and the bowlers have attacked, accepting economy rates will suffer in the search for wickets.

But for the first time, it appears there is some consternation in the camp regarding the types of pitches England should be requesting for the Ashes. Stokes has demanded flat surfaces that make things easier for his aggressive batting line-up to score quickly, but that does no favours to a bowling attack short of genuine pace and without a world-class spinner.

Stuart Broad was first to raise his head above the parapet, describing the pitch at Edgbaston as "slow" and "soulless" before Ollie Robinson, in his first column for Wisden, hinted he was hopeful there would be some movement in the pitch for the second Test at Lord's.

The knockout blow was landed by James Anderson, writing in his column for The Telegraph, who said: "The pitch was like Kryptonite for me. There was not much swing, no reverse swing, no seam movement, no bounce and no pace. I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle. It’s a long series and hopefully, I can contribute at some point, but if all the pitches are like that, I’m done in the Ashes series."

Such comments will not have gone down well with the England management, but it seems more than a coincidence that England’s three leading seamers made their feelings public in the space of a few days. They clearly have a different view to Stokes and after years of carrying the team when the batsmen proved largely unreliable, you can’t really blame them.

Lord's could restore balance of power

The first training session at Lord’s will be an interesting one and McCullum and Stokes will have some decisions to make – firstly about the type of surface they can request in order to give them the best chance to beat Australia, and how to ensure they aren’t alienating their best bowlers in order to make things easier for the batting group. McCullum talks a lot about man management and he will need to tread carefully to keep everyone pulling in the same direction.

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Anderson and co will at least be relieved to return to Lord’s, a venue that usually promotes a good contest between bat and ball, with the ball often dominating on day one before the pitch flattens out and allows batsmen to score runs. That was the case last summer when Anderson and Matthew Potts reduced New Zealand to 12-4 and 45-7, before they were eventually bowled out for 132. England were then dismissed for 141, before the Kiwis made 285 in their second innings, and England then chased down 277 with relative ease.

It was a similar scenario when South Africa visited a couple of months later, England losing early wickets on their way to being bowled out for 165 as the seamers found plenty of assistance from the surface. And when Ireland played England on this ground last month, they didn’t make 200 in their first innings as Broad ran riot, but posted 362 second time around.

So, with that in mind – and predicting exact weather patterns this far out is never advisable in England – it seems fair to assume we will get a pitch that has something for the seamers on the first day, before getting better to bat on as the game progresses. That’s certainly been the theme in recent years and, given the grumblings amongst his bowlers, Stokes might be happy with that, too.

I do think this might be a situation where both captains might prefer to bowl first if winning the toss, unlike at Edgbaston, and I wrote about that in more detail before the series. This means playing overs on second innings runs is well worth considering in-running, as is backing overs after Lunch on the first day if wickets have fallen early.

Middle order can make hay at Lord's

For now, I think betting the middle order in the top batsman markets is the way to go. It’s worth noting that Colin de Grandhomme top scored from number seven in the aforementioned Test match with New Zealand here last year, before Daryl Mitchell made 106 and Tom Blundell 96 in the second innings from numbers five and six.

Joe Root, Stokes and Ben Foakes did the bulk of England’s scoring in their subsequent run chase and something similar might well happen again this week.

BEN STOKES looks the obvious starting point, then, having found a good tempo to his batting in his second-innings 43 in Birmingham.

Stokes has been criticised for being too aggressive with his batting since taking over as captain, so desperate has he been to force his attacking ethos on the team. However, that was always likely to change this summer, with his point well and truly made and the most important series on England’s calendar demanding Stokes the captain delivers big runs with the bat.

Stokes was England’s leading runscorer in the 2019 Ashes in England and his team now need something similar from their talisman if they are to force their way back into this series. Stokes struck a brilliant, unbeaten 115 on this ground in 2019 and given the expectation that we will see early wickets fall in the first innings during the first couple of days, I’m happy to side with him in the top England first innings batsman market at 8/1.

With Moeen Ali’s finger injury meaning he is a doubt for Lord’s, I do wonder if England will consider going into the match with an all-seam attack – meaning CHRIS WOAKES might come into the reckoning.

Woakes has an astonishing record at Lord’s, taking 27 wickets at an average of 11.33 with the ball and averaging 50.41 with the bat having made 137 not out against India in 2018. A recall might seem unlikely, but his all-round credentials would make him a viable alternative to Moeen and Rehan Ahmed and he would certainly be a good fit at number eight.

With stakes returned if he doesn’t play, I’ll add Woakes to the staking plan alongside Stokes. Should he get the nod in the coming days, Woakes' all-round record on this ground would also make him of interest in the Man of the Match market, but I was stung with Nathan Lyon at Edgbaston and will give this one a miss given I'm not particularly confident England will level the series this week.