High on hope, low on delivery. England are heading towards yet another heavy away Ashes defeat, with an overriding feeling of frustration and annoyance at what could have been. Despite a largely woeful winter, it doesn’t feel like they’ve been too far away from having a chance of claiming a rare victory, which makes the scale of the failure all the more galling.
Mitchell Starc and Travis Head have been the huge difference
makers and deserve to be joint Men of the Series. Steve Smith delivered in
Sydney, whilst Alex Carey has proven himself to be the world’s best wicket-keeper.
Other than that, there hasn’t been a lot to scare England. Major Australian absences
opened the door. Starc, and more latterly Scott Boland, have dragged their attack
through the series. Thirty years of worrying about Shane Warne and Nathan Lyon ended with a complete lack of spin option. Other than Head, Smith and Carey, no Aussie batter averaged
over 28.
Ultimately, though, it was a series defined by brainless
shots and dropped catches from the travelling Englishmen. By batters trying to work out how to play in
Australia on the hoof – unsurprisingly, a couple of years playing the Big Bash
hasn’t cut the mustard. By bowlers who, as a pack, astonishingly failed to learn
from where Starc and Boland have pitched the ball. Too many English bowlers
persisted with short, ineffective lengths when the evidence was obvious and
repeated. And a series undoubtedly defined by too many players not realising
when certain key moments demand a tweak of approach. Stokes hinted at
this mid-series, and some seemed to take it on board, but dismissals of Ollie
Pope, Harry Brook, Gus Atkinson, Will Jacks and Jamie Smith in particular, will
stay in the memory for a generation for all the wrong reasons.
Whatever the reasons or excuses, this is a massive, missed
opportunity. The new, brash, uber-positive style of play arrived just over three
years ago, it dramatically ended a run of just one Test match win in 17 and it
was wonderful. Huge run chases previously thought beyond a normal Test team became
the norm. Some gigantic, record-breaking performances thrilled us in Pakistan.
But ultimately, against the best teams and on pitches that require more patience,
the approach has fallen woefully short.
The clarity of thought that had seemingly been Ben Stokes’
greatest strength as captain wilted in the heat of Perth and under the lights
of Brisbane. Stokes and McCullum have preached bravery throughout their bold,
new era. But midway through the second Test, Stokes himself abandoned that
approach, grinding out a 152-ball fifty in a belated attempt to save the
series. The contradiction was stark. What does that say about the clarity of
the message, or the belief in it? Go and be brave and play your shots, lads –
even though your captain knows a different approach is needed, and your best
player is the number one batter in the world because he plays in a more
circumspect way?
There have been highlights of course. Winning in Melbourne
after 15 years without a single away victory. Joe Root put any doubts about his
all-time great standing – mainly smarmy Australian ones – to bed, with not one,
but two tremendous centuries. Jofra Archer briefly showed he has the ability to
be a top Test match bowler, but the inevitable breakdown, following Mark Wood’s
equally inevitable departure, felt like it left England searching ‘what next?’.
Jacob Bethell’s maiden first-class century in Sydney has
offered an exciting glimpse as to what lies ahead at no.3. And, by the way, he
played a sensible, more traditional, Test match innings in curating that. Josh
Tongue also arrived in the series too late, and the only questions around him
are why he didn’t play earlier and why he wasn’t given the
new ball ahead of the wayward, short-pitching Brydon Carse. He bowled a good
length and bowled at the stumps more than his fellow pace bowlers – and look at
the results.
By the time the Kiwis arrive in June for England’s next Test
match, you assume there will have been a huge amount of discussion. Not just about
who is selected, but what the plan is going forward. How do you ask players to still
be positive – Travis Head showed you can score quickly – and put pressure on
the opposition, whilst understanding your role and not falling to immature and arrogant
swipes at key stages of the innings?
When the Head Coach admits that his own preparation plans
were wrong, it is an indictment in itself. England arrived undercooked,
tactically inflexible and seemingly unwilling to adapt. McCullum’s comments
about over-practising after another heavy defeat landed badly, at a time when
supporters had invested heavily, both emotionally and financially, in following
the team.
The coach’s role is to prepare the team as best he can. The
captain helps with that and executes on the field. Without any benefit of hindsight,
why did they not realise before Perth that their usual bludgeoning approach
might not work on a huge ground with long boundaries? Why did they not review how
far up Starc pitches the ball, or check out Boland’s incredible statistics in
Australian conditions and identify where he bowls? If they did and told the bowlers
to bowl there, the bowlers failed magnificently. If they didn’t, then the
coaching team got it very wrong.
Every pundit and former player of either English or Aussie
persuasion talks about how you have to be careful with the hard Australian pitches and the resulting rising
ball when trying to drive on the up on the 5th or 6th
stump. It was widely accepted as an approach doomed to failure - except within
the England camp who clearly didn’t want to listen to the “has-beens”.
The attitude to training and warm-ups has been brought into
sharp focus throughout this disappointing winter. The prevalence of golf and
even the noise around Noosa is a bit of a sideshow. Players must have time off –
but what are they doing when they do turn up for work? So many questions will
need to be answered.
Why didn’t they play more cricket on the different pitches
and conditions they knew were ahead? England’s
bowlers often looked lethargic in their opening over, in stark contrast to Starc
in particular. Batters were repeatedly dismissed cheaply – 43 times for ten or
fewer runs which must near some sort of record. Meanwhile 17 dropped catches followed 18 last summer. These are
not anomalies. They point towards a systemic failure in preparation and
practice.
During the final Test match, one England player said in an
interview that they’re not told what to do and there aren’t lots of discussions
about performances. It was designed to be a positive statement – one that shows
they’re trusted with their own ability and initiative – but in reality, it just
makes everyone question whether the coach is doing his job properly and
preparing his players adequately.
Player Ratings and summary:
Zac Crawley 4.5: A tour that summed his Test career
up in many ways. England’s 3rd top scorer demonstrated why he has
been persistently picked by scoring 76 in Brisbane and 85 in Adelaide. However,
a pair of ducks in Perth set the tone, and scoring single figures in half of his
innings simply isn’t good enough. Surely an opening for a new opener?
Ben Duckett 4: Duckett’s return to Test cricket has
been an undoubted success, averaging well over 40 until he arrived here. He got
into the 20s six times, but not managed to go on to even a half-century. His
place will be secure for now, but he’ll need to demonstrate he’s improved his
technique outside off-stump to get another chance in Australia four years from
now.
Ollie Pope 3: The inevitable fall guy as England had their
new No.3 up their sleeve. He can’t complain about being dropped after the
latest in a string of erratic, sketchy-looking outings, but in fact, you could
have picked any one of the top three, and none could have readily had an issue.
His England days look numbered for now.
Joe Root 7.5: Two glorious centuries and 400 runs
across the series have cemented Root as the number one batter in the world, but
there will be significant tinges of disappointment at seven scores under 20. As
is often the case, Root wasn’t helped by going out to bat with the shine still
on the ball on far too many occasions. You wonder what he might be capable of if
he regularly arrived 20-30 overs into the innings as opposed to within the
first five.
Harry Brook 6: The enigma. The showman. The disappointment?
There will be an underlying feeling that Brook has failed to deliver on this
tour, a view certainly not helped by the timing and method of some of his
dismissals at key stages. However, he’s only a few dozen runs behind Root overall,
and outscored all the Aussies except Travis Head. Although he’s lacked a century,
his 41 in the first innings at Melbourne was key for England’s only win this
winter – so that’s not a bad tour at all, is it?
Brook is probably the one with the most to prove, partly
because his talent is so evidently stark. But he must mature in terms of managing
his game intelligence so he can develop into Root’s heir as the best batter and
a trustworthy, reliable future England captain.
Ben Stokes (c) 5.5: If you’d said to any fan or
pundit pre-tour that Stokes would play and bowl in all five Tests, it would
have caused a giant buzz of excitement at the prospect of winning the Ashes
back. He has started each Test and has generally delivered with the ball with
15 wickets – his 5/23 on the very first day put England in pole position in Perth –
whilst he added a couple of painstaking contributions with the bat.
But overall, it’s been a hugely disappointing tour for
Stokes, who must feel like he’s spent as much time talking about pre-tour preparation
and defending his players having beers on their days off as he has on-field action.
His stubbornness may help make him a great player, but he’s been too stubborn
to change his idea of who the new ball bowlers should be when it was clear Carse
was wasted in that role. Too stubborn to insist on a better length from his
attack – other than the highly unusual public set-to with Jofra Archer. The most
worrying element though, was the lack of on-field creativity that marked his
first two years in this role. The constant changes, the unusual fielding positions
– even the hyper-attacking nature that has been hard-wired in to his mantra seemed to disappear
too rapidly from his thoughts. By the time the floodlights were switched off in
Brisbane, Stokes looked a shadow of his previous confident, positively cocky
self.
Jamie Smith 2: Smith came into this series with many suggesting
he’d be the wicket-keeper picked in a joint Test XI. He’s left it with huge
questions over his temperament and the sound of the raucous Brisbane crowd
jeering his every move after a drop off Travis Head that visibly affected him.
He’s often looked like a rabbit in the headlights on this tour, whilst Carey
has been assured. Smith will have to have a sensational future career to not be
remembered forever for his dismissal to Marnus Labuschagne.
Jacob Bethell 8: Showed in Sydney why England have
had him around for the past couple of years. If he can deliver performances
like that at no.3 on a regular basis, his arrival will be the biggest positive
of this winter by a country mile.
Will Jacks 5: If it weren’t for Smith’s “worst
dismissal ever”, Jacks ruined what had been a reasonable tour with his
second-ball swipe at a key moment in Sydney, just as England and Bethell had got
themselves into a more competitive position. He was also another to make a total
hash out of trying to catch Australia’s best batter. Ultimately, one poor drop,
he’s not done quite enough with the bat, and he’s never going to be anything
more than a back-up part-time spinner.
Gus Atkinson 4: Unfortunate to only pick up six
wickets as he generally bowled better than that, but he did only get six in
three Tests. Not penetrative enough with the ball, his batting ability was also
kept well hidden. One of many to tick off a “dreadful shot” box in Brisbane, described
at the time by TMS’ Simon Mann (pre Labuschagne/Smith) as “the dimmest cricket
I’ve ever seen”.
Jofra Archer 5.5: Did his job, almost. England’s main
threat whilst he was fit and showed some flashes of being the top-class Test
bowler that has long been hoped for. Unfortunately, Archer mixed that with
spells of indifferent, off-top-pace bowling that let the foot off Australia’s
throat at key times. Getting nine wickets in three Tests isn’t enough for the leader
of the attack.
Brydon Carse 5: A harsh rating for England’s top
wicket-taker, perhaps, especially one who put in as much work to the cause as
anyone, but Carse’s lack of control and ability to hit the right line and length
consistently has been a big feature of the successful Australian innings.
Josh Tongue 7.5: Evidently, the bowling success of
the winter, Tongue arrived and did what everyone had been crying out for. Hit a
line and length more consistently, bowl at the stumps more often and generally make
it tougher for the Aussies. 15 wickets in two-and-a-half games, including Steve
Smith for the fifth time in six first-class matches. Magnificent to think England
have finally found a bowler that can count Steve Smith as his ‘bunny’ (Smith
averages just 16 against Tongue). It’s just a shame Smith has already scored
about 20,000 Ashes runs…
Brendon McCullum 1: Strange to think a coach who ‘led’
the team to its first away Ashes Test victory in 15 years would be coming home
to such scrutiny, but it’s hard to think of much that ‘Baz’ did that positively
affected the tour. The rare successes appeared more down to Stokes’
determination and realisation that some digging in was needed, and the examples
he led with to show the team the way forward.
The preparation, the general approach and the tactics were
all quite simply wrong. His occasional interviews and comments landed badly,
leading to more questions and only fuelling the flames that surrounded the team.
The coaching team around him appear disjointed and simply mirrored his general
outlook in their interviews.
Having spent two years insisting Shoaib Bashir play every Test match to ready him for this tour, the poor lad hasn't been seen, other than a slightly sad foray onto the pitch at Adelaide by himself once the series was lost.
Comments from Darren Lehmann suggesting he’s not spoken to
anyone in the current set-up, despite being a current County coach and Ashes
player/coach were backed up by other experienced ex-players saying no-one’s reached
out to them to simply grab a coffee or beer to chew the fat. This suggests an unhelpful
insistence on being totally insular, with a lack of any desire or care to benefit
from the experience of others.
If McCullum survives the aftermath, he will have to make
some significant changes. This plan has failed, so a new plan is needed. Can
his ego handle that?
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