Joe Root’s beleaguered side are likely to shuffle the pack again in Hobart on Friday with question marks over the wicketkeeper, openers and seam attack
![Five questions for England to resolve for the fifth and final Ashes Test | Simon Burnton](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4ab92d9cc548a62e8f75968a04fe1c13d0631562/0_0_5000_3000/master/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=a08d3c52d027a287e7e212151e06ee1b)
As if Jos Buttler’s Ashes series had not been painful enough, a campaign that included one particularly humiliating drop – to spare a century-bound Marnus Labuschagne in Adelaide – and a combined 45 runs across his last six innings has ended with a broken finger and an early flight home. Buttler averages 35.68 in 20 Tests as a specialist batter compared with 29.60 in 37 as wicketkeeper, including just 19.04 against Australia at home and away, leaving his long-term place in the team in doubt. First a new keeper has to be found to end the series. Jonny Bairstow, the obvious candidate, has his own injury to nurse, and though Ollie Pope did admirably as stand-in in
Sydney Sam Billings is widely expected to make his Test debut. At 30 Billings has experience across all formats and also as a captain, but he has only played 11 first-class matches in the last three years, keeping wicket in just two of those. This will not be an easy audition.