England enter the point of no return for Ashes hopes

The gloves are off, the dogs are unleashed, the battle is joined… or so England must fervently hope. At the third time of asking, there can be no more false dawns for an Ashes campaign that began with an optimism unparalleled for more than a decade, but is now in serious danger of descending into chaos.

Is Bazball dead, or just dozing? After a mid-tour break in Noosa that looked about as relaxing as a weekend in a goldfish bowl, and a brace of airport altercations that confirmed the extent to which the media hubbub has penetrated England's fabled dressing-room environment, attention now turns to Adelaide, and one final chance for Ben Stokes' men to front up in the manner for which their mindset had (supposedly) been honed.

Victory, surely, should not be out of the question for a team that still boasts Test cricket's most prolific opening partnership since 2019, the ICC's No.1 and No.4-ranked Test batters, and a coterie of fast bowlers that - Mark Wood's series-ending injury notwithstanding - has bowled with rare fury in two innings out of four to date (albeit the second of those lasted just 10 overs, and came after two deeply passive, and match-losing, displays).

Stokes, however, knows that his team's hopes are already steaming out of Port Adelaide. Hence his intense rattiness in the wake of the Brisbane loss, and his unusually incoherent call to arms on the eve of this make-or-break contest. Though he urged his players to reveal their inner "dog", Stokes seemed to twig, mid-metaphor, that one man's XL Bully is another man's Bichon Frise.

Whatever the size of the fight in their dogs, England will need to get their pack in order pretty damned quick, because Australia are hardly renowned for giving suckers an even break, especially on home soil. As if they were not already sitting pretty in the series, the Aussies are set to field their strongest XI yet, with the return of Pat Cummins from injury and Nathan Lyon from exile, and with so many of their early-series concerns assuaged by the makeshift success of their rejigged top-order. Scarily for the visitors, Travis Head's success as a stand-in opener is nothing compared to his recent record as a No. 5 at Adelaide.

England will be in no doubt that they spurned two golden opportunities at Perth and Brisbane, but the ledger leaves no space for what-ifs. Their touring teams have now lost 15 and drawn two of their last 17 matches in Australia since 2011, while in six of their last seven campaigns dating back to 2002-03, they've gone into the third Test 2-0 down, and duly surrendered the Ashes with a third loss on the bounce.

Even on the rare occasions that England have not been second-best in Australia, the maintenance of mid-tour momentum has been vanishingly hard to achieve. Astonishingly, they have not won the third Test of a series in Australia since January 1966, four years before the advent of the one-day international (which itself occurred during the washed-out third Test of Ray Illingworth's triumphant tour).

Such are the reasons why England were willing to let all precedent go hang for this campaign, to march into Australia with clear minds and simple methods, and let their vibes do the heavy lifting. Losing another away Ashes would, in itself, be no disgrace, but the evidence of the first part of this campaign is that Bazball's battleplans have been scattered at the merest contact with the enemy. Without an obvious Plan B to fall back on, humiliation seems a likelier endgame than a fightback.

How else to explain the extraordinary banishment of Shoaib Bashir? For the best part of two years, he had been Stokes' pet project - an offspinner fed and watered like a home-grown tomato plant, on the promise that he'd be ripe for England's salad days this very winter. Regardless of his raw talent, Bashir owed so much of his (limited but tangible) success to the nurturing approach of a captain who has now declared he's done with bringing up the rear.

Instead, with legacies on the line, Stokes is back in the mood for leading from the front, which is good news for those who still believe in Headingley 2019-style miracles, but bad news for a dressing-room culture that had been all about the collective for three-and-a-half years. The devil can take the hindmost now, and failing that, an attack comprising Cummins, Lyon, Mitchell Starc, Scott Boland and Cameron Green will be all too willing to oblige … yet again. Have the past four years all been a fever dream, spawned by the memories of England's last straight-sets Ashes loss? We might be about to find out.

Australia: WWWWW (last five Tests, most recent first)
England: LLLDW

Until he tore his calf at Lord's in 2023, Nathan Lyon had been an Australian fixture for 100 consecutive Tests; until he was left out for last week's pink-ball Test, he'd played 69 in a row on home soil, dating back to India's visit in 2011-12. Now finally, having bowled just two overs in the series opener at Perth, he's back in the Ashes in a full and proper context. Adelaide Oval is where it all began for Lyon - as a member of the groundstaff prior to his unlikely re-routing into the state set-up - and it is also the most prolific hunting ground of his mighty career, with 63 Test wickets in his 14 previous visits. He claims he has no point to prove, despite declaring himself "filthy" at his omission for the second time in three Tests. However, at a venue that might suit England's methods better than most, his vast experience is quite the addition to the mix for a team with a 2-0 lead in the bag.

Who on earth could Ben Stokes have been talking about when he launched into his post-Gabba rant about the "weak men" in his dressing-room? That's not actually a rhetorical question - we genuinely do not know - but Jamie Smith might be forgiven for assuming his name was right at the forefront of his skipper's thoughts. Smith made scores of 0 and 4 in Brisbane, alongside a tone-setting drop off Travis Head in Australia's first innings and, if that wasn't bad enough, his opposite number Alex Carey graced the same occasion with one of the most acclaimed displays by a wicketkeeper in Australia's proud history. Stokes did seem to be rowing back from any criticism when, in his pre-Adelaide comments, he singled out Smith for his "laid-back" nature, but it feels as though his card had already been marked. The tensions of this occasion have been laid bare. There's no room for further fumbles.

Usman Khawaja declared himself "100% fit" after the back spasms that scuppered his role in the first two Tests, but the selectors have decided the narrative has moved on - at least for now. Travis Head's impact at the top of the order has been transformative, not least on the newcomer Jake Weatherald, whose proactive strokeplay has been a key part of Australia's two wins to date. In other news, Australia welcome back the small matter of 871 Test wickets, with their captain Pat Cummins passed fit after his back issues, and Nathan Lyon restored to his spinner's role. Brendan Doggett and Michael Neser make way, the latter despite his five-wicket haul at the Gabba.

Australia: 1 Jake Weatherald, 2 Travis Head, 3 Marnus Labuschagne, 4 Steven Smith (capt), 5 Cameron Green, 6 Alex Carey (wk), 7 Josh Inglis, 8 Pat Cummins, 9 Mitchell Starc, 10 Nathan Lyon, 11 Scott Boland

England's show of faith in their batting is unsurprising in the context of everything that this regime has stood for: the establishment of a solid top seven, irrespective of the external pressures on certain players, was seen at the start of the series as one of the team's genuine trump cards. Right now, however, their dearth of options feels every bit as telling, and more than a few incumbents will be feeling a pressure to perform that has been explicitly absent throughout the Bazball era.

The lack of faith in Bashir, on the other hand, is a remarkable turn of events, given the unequivocal backing he had received, right up to the moment that they decided he was unselectable. Will Jacks continues in his jack-of-all-trades berth at No.8, while Josh Tongue's inclusion comes at the expense of Gus Atkinson, whose three wickets at 78.66 include two in an already lost cause in the second innings at Brisbane.

England: 1 Zak Crawley, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Ollie Pope, 4 Joe Root, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Ben Stokes (capt), 7 Jamie Smith (wk), 8 Will Jacks, 9 Brydon Carse, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Josh Tongue

Adelaide has a reputation as one of Australia's flatter surfaces, which ought to play to England's established strengths. Moreover, the shorter square boundaries offer a better risk-reward ratio for the happier hookers in their ranks - Harry Brook for one, albeit he's vowed to "rein it in a bit" after his "shocking" dismissals in the first two Tests. This is just the second red-ball Test at the venue since the introduction of day-night contests. It will be hot over the first few days, with 38C forecast on Thursday, before a chance of a shower over the weekend - if the game is still going by then.

"Incredible, I think it shows just great depth in the Aussie cricket system at the moment with fast bowlers"
Pat Cummins on Australia being 2-0 up in his and Josh Hazlewood's absence

"I've done all the talking over the last two days that I needed to have done. All that stuff's done now, so it's about what gets seen out on the field in Adelaide this week."
Ben Stokes knows it's now or never