{"id":257090,"date":"2025-11-11T16:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257090\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T16:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:32:09","slug":"ashes-andrew-flintoffs-lions-not-there-to-play-england-into-form-josh-hull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257090\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashes: Andrew Flintoff&#8217;s Lions not there to play England into form &#8211; Josh Hull"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Josh Hull is hoping to give England&#8217;s Ashes batters a thorough workout in this week&#8217;s warm-up match in Perth and insisted England Lions are not there to play the Test side into form.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Head coach Brendon McCullum has opted against any tour matches against local opposition ahead of the marquee series, taking preparations in-house with a three-day clash against Andrew Flintoff&#8217;s second string at Perth&#8217;s Lilac Hill (13 November, 02:00 GMT).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The standard of domestic opponents has not always been reliable and England are banking on Thursday&#8217;s fixture being enough before the first Test at Optus Stadium on 21 November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And Hull, a once-capped seamer who at the age of 21 remains firmly on the radar, is hoping to do his bit by making life hard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 6ft 7in left-armer, who was handed a surprise international debut in 2024 after only a handful of first-class games, said: &#8220;For England you want the batters to be in good form and whacking it about but once you get into the battle, my job as a bowler is trying to take wickets for the Lions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There&#8217;s obviously two sides to it but my main job is to get those guys out. You want them to have a good run out and feel good but we&#8217;ll play our part by being really competitive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve got some big names to bowl at, be it (Joe) Root or (Harry) Brook or the two openers who can be really difficult to bowl at. It&#8217;s a great test for us and it&#8217;s really exciting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Hopefully I can get a bit more out of the pitches than I do at home, they&#8217;re a lot bouncier and that could be really helpful.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Hull is hoping to give England&#8217;s Ashes batters a thorough workout in this week&#8217;s warm-up match in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-257090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}