England’s cricketers have just crashed to a second humiliating defeat against Australia, leaving them 2-0 down in the five-match series. With occasional exceptions, we have batted, bowled and fielded atrociously. It was, as Sir Geoffrey Boycott has written in the Telegraph, ‘a horror show’.
England only narrowly avoided an innings defeat, in the end losing this second match by eight wickets – the same massive margin as in the first Test. As I suggested before the series began, on their home turf the Aussies are approximately twice as good as we are: they usually do more in one innings (or one innings and a bit) than we can manage in two.
It’s true that theoretically we could still regain the Ashes by winning the last three matches in the series. But coming from 2-0 down against the Australians in Australia looks nigh on impossible – especially considering that Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, two of Australia’s best bowlers, are set to return from injury. This latest debacle comes after we lost the last three series down under 5-0, 4-0 and 4-0; we haven’t won a Test match in Australia since 2011.
So what should we do? Well, clearly the radical long-term changes that are required can’t be implemented mid-series. In the short-term the only option is to change the team. As Ed Smith, a former England selector, once wrote: ‘The most underrated force on a cricket team is selection. Once the players are out on the pitch, they are essentially on their own. All the more reason to get the right ones out there in the first place.’
And at the moment England very obviously don’t have the right ones out there. So for the Adelaide Test starting on 17 December, it would be good to see wholesale changes in the team. Of the eleven who took the field in the match that finished today, I’d retain only Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Will Jacks who at least all managed to bat once with the required application and resilience. Oh, and it might perhaps be worth retaining Ollie Pope; not batting first-wicket down where he has been given far too many opportunities and exhausted everyone’s patience but as the wicketkeeper, batting lower down the order where he has done well in the past.
England have got plenty of other players in Australia – the England Lions are also touring (though they’re not doing any better than the senior team). Let’s see what some of them can do. As Boycott also observes, ‘This lot [the team that has lost the first two Tests] aren’t even afraid of getting dropped which is why we see the same old failings, particularly in the batting.’ Never was a truer word written. It might be that the outrageously talented but serially underperforming Harry Brook can force his way back into the team, but he shouldn’t be guaranteed his place.
Indeed no one should be guaranteed a place. There is a lot of talk about Root eventually overtaking Sachin Tendulkar as the most prolific run-maker of all time. But it’s unhealthy to fixate on these things. Cricket is a team sport; individual milestones are nice if they happen in the natural course of events but keeping players in a team until they break a record is the tail wagging the dog.
So I’d give seven or eight new players a chance; we might unearth some new talent and I really don’t see what we have to lose. Anyway, the England cricket management are badly in need of some new ideas: if you have any suggestions, the comments section beckons…
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