Ashes 25/26 in review

[PhatBoy]

Poor effort by England

They had the team to challenge us with our bowling stocks a bit thin

Instead gifted us wickets
Did no proper warm up games
Sat their whole team for the pink ball trial game

No fielding coach and dropped a heap of catches

Halfway through the series Stokes changed his mind on the attacking batting approach??? Berated others for being aggressive and throwing wickets away, need "hard men"

Picked Ollie Pope ahead of Bethell until the series was over

Banked on two quicks Archer and Wood who've both been out injured for years and had minimal match play during the lead in

Picked a spinner just to be a net bowler

Ill-prepared, arrogant, dumb.

Didn't think we were actually that good overall...? Leant heavily on Starc, Head, Carey who were excellent. Our fielding was a class above theirs too

Each time England got in a position to challenge us they did the dumbest thing imaginable or dropped a soda. Didn't feel like we had to play at our best to win.

Strange series

I agree with a lot of this but gee Archer is a lightning rod for whatever criticism can be found.
He played 2 games and bowled 86 overs against India and they probably did themselves no favours in what was a must-win game by resting he and Carse for the series decider (they should have still won it).
Then he played 5 out of 6 one dayers against SA and NZ plus the ‘tour match’ against England A, and one of the T20 games against SA.

For a guy just returning to international cricket its probably a pretty big workload.

Pope also was England’s best batsman in Perth along with Brook.

If they got one century out of another batsman in that game and win it, suddenly his 46 and 33 look rather more valuable; they weren’t going to drop him immediately after that match, so it stood to reason that he’d get a game’s grace even if Bethell deserved a shot.

The rest I think is pretty much bang on

 

[icyflakes]

Neser and boland are great (and one or both will play the next ashes over there because they suit the conditions). But they dont have more than 2-3 years left and given starc and hazlewood dont have long left either we need to transition some younger bowlers in. Ultimately I think this will be Richardson when hes fully fit but we need to look at bringing Bartlett and a few others through over the next 12-18 months and give them a taste of test level while we transition.

Given all our bowlers are going to fade out in the next few years (either forcibly by injury or simply aging and performing worse) I think Neser and Boland, who both seem to be non-giving-up-bowler-guys , will be incredibly important over the next 4 years.

Maybe Neser less so (he was looking a bit sore at the SCG), but Alyssa Healy was saying she was talking to Patty about Boland, and he was heaping love on the fact that no matter the game situation, you can just put Boland on at one end and lock it down while you figure things out. I think thats analogous to how he will help the side transition.

 

[Blackhawk42]

Elite sportspeople shouldn’t be getting blind drunk while in season / on tour. Full stop. It’s ****ing ridiculous and anybody who says otherwise is a goose.

We saw Duckett was and without doubt others were too.

All professional sportspeople are constantly carrying some sort of injury - their body is their tool and they put it through major strain. Your ability to recover from that is crucial. Alcohol completely affects that.

It dehydrates you, ****s with your sleeping, gives you headaches, ****s with your guts, all things that hamper your ability to recover, prepare and train properly. It impacts you for a number of days afterwards, which you can feel, but also beyond that.

I mean, a beer or two (and that’s it) or a glass of wine with dinner isn’t a big deal because it’s a negligible amount that wont have a major affect. But getting on the piss, **** me. These guys are idiots. This is their grand final.

And there’s 100% a PR side too. Why would you show your supporters who pay your wages you’re not 100% dedicated? Why make it harder for your leaders and admin who have to answer questions about this shit?

The article says Stokes told them not to go out after the third test because it was a shit look. A number of them apparently ignored them.

There’s a massive lack of discipline and leadership.

I've played a lifetime of country footy, and the majority of blokes I've played with are more professional than that.

No excuse at the elite level. This is also why I had no sympathy for Joel Smith for testing positive to cocaine on game day. His ban should have been longer.

 

[western royboy]

Ashes calamity has trashed McCullum’s credibility. It’s time to call on Alec Stewart | Mark Ramprakash

England’s best performances came when the players didn’t follow the coach’s rhetoric and that highlights the problem with his one-dimensional approach

www.theguardian.com

Very good argument

 

[Gibbke]

Two things about the series:
1) The spirit of Bazball certainly didn't help, because England these days walk around with an arrogance that doesn't necessarily come with bulletproof ability...there are no Vivs in that team, but preparation was the killer. Yeah, the 2021-22 side was as weak as piss, and played like it...a player like Scott Boland was always going to look good against that mob, so the injection of some McCullum bravado did give the Barmies some hope. Rather than true positive cricket though, it was T20 bash...it was great to forsake the old staples of playing yourself in, building an innings, treating bowlers with respect and choosing your shots, all in favour of playing a ramp to get off the mark, but it needs dead pitches to work. Bounce or swing, they're usually screwed. They accounted for none of this.

So what's happened, England turn up to Australia with no real preparation, choosing to play their own juniors in a short match rather than a tough game against NSW (who would never turn down the chance to beat up on internationals no matter how loudly CA told them to hide their cards) or on the actual Perth or Gabba decks that they'd have to combat, let alone scheduling some pink ball practice, and then think their "spirit" will get them over the line. They didn't prepare, therefore they lost the Ashes. It's that simple. Everything that happened positively for them in Melbourne and Sydney counts for shit, because they'd already failed the mission.

2) Travis Head should have been MOTM in the first test, and should have been MOTS. Mitchell Starc was fantastic, sure, but several bowlers in the match were outstanding too. But when Australia was given the target to chase in Perth, there was no indication that anyone could make the runs. When the series was alive, Head was the only batsman across the first three tests who was able to rise to the occasion, and the eventual closeness of the averages and tallies for the batsmen over five games was due to the bloated boosting that players who hadn't stood up before got in later games which didn't count. The batting was always going to be the decider in this series, because both sets of bowlers were fantastic...Starc looks a lot better too when it's considered that three England quicks fell to injury...

To be blunt, this was a nothing series and considering the non-event that was last year's India series, we've had two years of supposedly the Big Three playing off for supremacy that have fallen way short. If the newly rejuvenated South Africa had toured this year, they would have thrown the kitchen sink at us and their preparation would have been meticulous...

 

[MarcusP2]

All just Marnus talking absolute garbage.

 

[Gough]

Simon Hughes unloads.

ZERO TOLERANCE

After more sordid revelations about England cricketers on tour it is time our (international) game went 100 percent dry.

cricverse.substack.com

 

[MisterMarcus]

Simon Hughes unloads.

ZERO TOLERANCE

After more sordid revelations about England cricketers on tour it is time our (international) game went 100 percent dry.

cricverse.substack.com

I mean, there is a happy medium between "get blackout pissed every night while on tour" and "total puritan abstinence".

Surely it should be more about getting a mature and responsible environment set up where players can have a couple of beers, but everyone agrees when it's enough. Treating players like toddlers probably isn't it.