England skipper Ben Stokes was also tight-lipped on the visitors\u2019 XI<\/a> with the state of the pitch on match day also set to play a decisive role.<\/p>\n\u201cI mean, we try and act like we know what we\u2019re doing when we\u2019re looking down at the pitch and rubbing it and knocking it — no one really has a clue to be honest,\u201d Stokes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can only just try and give yourself the best chance of thinking: right, what 11 do we need to give us a chance of winning this?\u201d<\/p>\n
England has named a 12-man squad with Matthew Potts coming in for Gus Atkinson while spinner Shoaib Bashir remains the frame for selection.<\/p>\n
While England is no hope of reclaiming the urn after dropping the first three Tests of the series, Stokes said there was still plenty of reasons for the tourists to lift at the SCG. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a big game, purely because we\u2019re walking out there representing England,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ashes, unfortunately for us, hasn\u2019t gone the way we wanted it to, but we\u2019ve got one more game in a big series.<\/p>\n
Massive crowds queue in the Members line on the 1st Day of 5th Ashes Test in Sydney. Picture: John AppleyardSource: News Corp Australia<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s a real big one for us. So although we can\u2019t get the thing that we came here for, we\u2019ve still got a chance to go there and win a game of cricket.\u201d<\/p>\n
The action gets underway on Sunday at 10.30am AEDT, although the Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a shower or two with a 25 per cent chance of up to 10 millimetres of rain.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the showers aren\u2019t expected until the afternoon and early evening so there is a strong chance of at least getting some runs on the board before then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s all-pace attack created early inroads on day one of the New Year\u2019s Ashes Test, ripping the head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[208939,11638,64,63,689,2129,6884,1208,2057,94870,208934,12548,2105,24161,31550,2504,208941,161599,647,208937,44,3583,677,208936,28008,208938,208931,167518,18784,89809,660,13739,208940,208933,208932,208935],"class_list":["post-390100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-adam-morehouse","tag-ashes-series","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-ben-stokes","tag-bureau-of-meteorology","tag-england","tag-europe","tag-final-call","tag-final-call-looms","tag-fox-cricket","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-gus-atkinson","tag-home-soil","tag-lifts-lid","tag-live-scores","tag-matthew-potts","tag-melbourne","tag-members-firming","tag-news","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-press-conference-room","tag-quinn-rooney","tag-selection-gamble","tag-selection-stunner","tag-shoaib-bashir","tag-steven-smith","tag-todd-murphy","tag-victoria","tag-weather-forecast","tag-webster-amp-murphy","tag-webster-ampamp-murphy","tag-webster-ampampamp-murphy","tag-webster-ampampampamp-murphy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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