Monday 2 October 2017 10:05, UK
After England named their squad to defend the Ashes in Australia this winter, head coach Trevor Bayliss sat down with Nasser Hussain to discuss the positions that required most deliberation.
The Australian also spoke about the other factors that came into consideration when picking a squad that he admitted was "fairly difficult" to pick and required "some long discussions over the last two or three positions".
Bayliss added: "We've had a few injuries just recently but we feel we've picked a team that is more than capable of going there and winning."
Yes [I would ask Joe Root to bat at No 3]. I suppose being an Australian, most Australians would think the same, get your best player in at No 3 and set the standard. If you lose an early one then your best player should be the one that is best suited to see the team through a difficult period and, on the other side things, he can set the standard on getting stuck into the opposition as well.
I'm more than happy with Joe taking the reins and wanting to bat No 4, he's been very successful there for the team. I suppose one of the problems is that we haven't had someone in that top order who has stood up and said 'I'm the one you want at No 3'.
No 3 was one of the positions we had a long discussion over. In the end, it was more about the positives someone like James Vince could bring us, the type of game he has got and we discussed for a while that his type of game could be successful in Australia; he's strong off the back foot, square of the wicket, offside and legside. Yes he might nick off a few times, but so can everyone else at the top of the order.
Certainly in Gary Ballance's case, I think he has gone back to county cricket and scored a lot of runs this year before he had the broken finger. He could quite well have been in the team for the whole summer before that broken thumb. It is not perfect, we acknowledge that.
We'd love two or three guys to be sticking their hands up, averaging 50-plus in international cricket and a foregone conclusion that they're in. In some of the positions we've had to make a bit of a gut call and that is not necessarily anything against the guys who have missed out, we think they're quality players and we want them to prove us wrong.
I think at this stage [who bats No 3 and No 5] is probably flexible, we've got a number of warm-up games and practices out in Australia so we will know more once we get out there and give both Vince and Ballance a go and have a look at them.
We're lucky that we've got a Lions tour that will be alongside the Ashes trip before Christmas, so when that squad is announced next week I envisage that a number of those guys who missed out will be on that trip and close by to the squad.
We'll have a number of good young guys on that trip so if we need someone pretty quick, we can get them there. If they're too far away, we think we've picked the best seven or eight batters that we can and we just have to make do if that happens. But we will have some of those good young players on that tour.
Ideally, looking at it from a few Test matches out, we'd have loved to give Mason Crane a game in that last Test match of the summer but having not played as well in that second one (against Windies) and being 1-1, the wicket at Lord's had a bit of grass on it as well so unfortunately he missed out. We think he's got a bright future in front of him.
Jack Leach can count himself unlucky, as well. I'd like to think he'll be on that Lions trip and close by, in case we do need him. The No 3 position and the spin position were the two positions we spent a lot of time on, but from Mason's point of view, we did have him around during the season.
He's highly regarded as spin bowler and his mentality and his competitive nature, not just what he does with the ball, and in Australia as a leg-spin bowler he'll get more bounce than the orthodox spin bowlers on those hard wickets - bounce can take wickets.
It is a difficult one, no one is trying to brush over anything but what he has shown us so far is that he is a leader within the group when it comes to cricket. There is no denying that. I'm sure there will be some investigations and whatnot going forward but at the moment, we're quite happy for him to be the vice-captain.
I'm definitely not [happy for Stokes etc to be out at 2.35am two days before a match]. We'll be looking into that but I've been with teams before where we've had curfews and that doesn't work either. I think whichever way you go about it, a lot of responsibility comes back to the players. They're adults, they're professionals so they've got to take responsibility and the other night with a few guys being out, I thought it was very unprofessional in the middle of a series.
It is going to be difficult and unfortunately he is going to have to deal with it. How he gets around that, we'll have to sit down and have a discussion about that.
