One word the battling English side won’t cop despite 0-2 Ashes hole
England’s preparation for this year’s Ashes series has been torn apart after another dismal defeat in Brisbane left the tourists in a gaping hole.
COMMENT
As England stumbled towards a second straight heavy defeat to start this year’s hugely anticipated Ashes series, one word the Poms still fiercely refute – but one that refuses to go away – was right back on the agenda.
The word is arrogance.
Most Aussie cricket fans would concede they had concerns about this outwardly confident English side coming Down Under and planning to wrench back the little urn for the first time since 2015.
Watch The Ashes 2025/26 LIVE and ad-break free during play with FOX CRICKET on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
They had a deep, express pace bowling line-up that was supposedly ready for Australian conditions and set to frighten the life out of the home side’s brittle top order.
England also had a settled batting card, in stark contrast to Australia’s lack of form and issues from the opening duo down, outside of Steve Smith and Alex Carey.
Much of the media speculation ahead of the series in this part of the world centred around who would stop the revolving Aussie door at opener, with the likes of Marnus Labuschagne, Sam Konstas, Matt Renshaw and eventual winner Jake Weatherald all in the mix.
Another massive issue was the fact the hosts would miss their leader and critical all-rounder Pat Cummins to start the series and then lost another spearhead, Josh Hazlewood, to a hamstring injury.
That meant the imposing and dominant bowling ‘big four’ was instead patched together by debutant Brendan Doggett for the first two Tests and journeyman Michael Neser in Brisbane.
Yet none of that apparent turmoil has made a sliver of difference to the Australian side, which marched to an eight-wicket victory at the Gabba on Sunday and a commanding 2-0 series lead.
Outside of a dreadful 132 all out in the first innings in Perth, Australia has been comfortably the better team thus far, underlined by Mitchell Starc’s herculean series and Travis Head’s hundred when thrown into the opening role for an injured Usman Khawaja at Optus Stadium.
For England, the disastrous start to the series surely falls down to its preparation or lack thereof, and that’s where the dreaded A-word comes in.
England opened its tour with a three-day game against the England Lions at the boutique and picturesque Lilac Hill ground northeast of Perth.
Twelve months earlier, India began its Aussie tour with an intense training session at the WACA – under a veil of secrecy no less – a venue which is far more representative of the Optus Stadium surface for the first Test.
Following their stunning Perth defeat inside two days, the tourists then had a chance to send any number of their players to Canberra for a three-day warm-up fixture, crucially a match featuring the all-important – and rarely used – pink ball.
It was a generous offer from those behind the schedule and surely one the English would lap up, particularly in light of the shock outcome in Western Australia
Yet despite the nature of the first Test defeat, and their lack of pink ball cricket, the English opted to send exactly no one to the nation’s capital to prepare for the Gabba showdown.
Curiously, captain Ben Stokes admitted at the time “it makes sense” to give his charges some time with the unusual pill, but still decided against it.
Work that one out.
After intense criticism from the likes of Sir Ian Botham and Mitchell Johnson, Stokes hit back hard at any suggestion of “arrogance” from his side.
“You can call us rubbish, call us whatever you want to be and we didn’t have the (first) Test match we wanted to,” Stokes said.
“We were great in passages of that game, but I think arrogant might be a little bit too far. That’s OK, we’ll take the rough with the smooth.
“Arrogant, sometimes, you’re a bit like, ‘ugh’, I am not too sure about that one.”
It was impossible to escape the belief, from the perpetually sunglassed Brendon McCullum and his lieutenant Stokes down, that ‘she’ll be right, we’ve got this, stop worrying’.
Botham fired back at that attitude during his role with Triple M radio as England briefly staved off defeat on Sunday.
“They missed a trick,” he said. “They could’ve sent the team that was going to play in this Test to Canberra and had some experience with the pink ball.
“What do we do? ‘No, we don’t need to’. Well I suggest you do need to. You dropped five catches the other day. England could’ve been ahead.
“If I was an England supporter and they paid their money to come here, I’d be asking the ECB for a refund.
“This team to me is not prepared.”
After England collapsed on Saturday to be facing another heavy defeat in the second Test, batting coach Marcus Trescothick was asked about that preparation and sung the same tune the rest of the touring party seems to know off by heart.
Despite some now deafening criticism of that pre-Ashes plan, the former left-hander batter was having none of it.
“Preparation is not the question for me at all,” Trescothick insisted. “We were very happy with the preparation that we’ve used and what we’ve had.
“This question comes up all the time and it’s the same answer, this is the way that tours are nowadays.
“This is not unique for us in Australia, coming here this trip, that we haven’t played three Shield games like you’d expect we’d have done 20 or 30 years ago, not that that made any difference.
“So it’s the same when Australia come to England, it’s the same when we go to India.
“Of course when you look at the situation here now, it puts you under pressure.
“But it’s not the reason we’ve come into the games and the situations we are.”
In essence he’s saying sure, with the benefit of hindsight it looks bad, but we’ve still done the right thing.
Sorry Marcus, that doesn’t cut the Marmite.
Michael Vaughan, the leader of that famous 2005 side that stared down a pre-eminent Shane Warne and an injured Glenn McGrath to claim a stirring Ashes win, spoke about Trescothick’s comments and the preparation ahead of Sunday’s fourth day on Kayo Sports.
Vaughan had done his research and had numbers ready to go about the lack of experience among the England ranks with the pink ball.
“Marcus Trescothick is an old teammate of mine, but I’d love to quietly have a drink with him,” he began.
“To think England have arrived here to take on the pink ball – Jofra Archer has bowled five overs with the pink ball in Ahmedabad a few years ago, Brydon Carse has played one game five years ago, Jamie Smith has never, ever, ever played a pink ball game and his first game is here against Australia 1-0 down, the best pink ball team in the world.
“The list goes on about the amount of cricket these guys have played, but specifically for this pink ball game, surely they needed a bit more action?
“When (Trescothick) talks about ‘it’s not worked in the past’, the only time England have come down here with a genuine chance was 2010/11.
“They had a rock solid team led by Andrew Strauss, Andy Flower as coach, they had a top seven that was very consistent and they had a bowling unit that had variation.
“They prepared correctly for that group of players.
“No one can tell me that this England management has given this England team the best chance with the tools that they’ve got to win in Australia.”
Commentators and TV graphic departments must be tired of commenting and demonstrating the inability of the vaunted England quicks to land the ball in the right areas so far.
The only way to learn where to place a delivery Down Under – which Australia has shown time and again, led by Starc’s 18 wickets and counting, is full and on or around off stump – is experience on these bouncy pitches.
Vaughan expanded on the baffling moves to avoid playing on any pitches that would resemble those coming in the heat of Test match cricket in Australia, a prospect unlike any other in world cricket.
“By not playing at the WACA going into Perth, they played at Lilac Hill, whether they could’ve booked the WACA I’m not sure,” he continued.
“But surely like India they should’ve booked the WACA to play on a bouncy pitch before Perth. They didn’t.
“To not think you need at least two days, if they’re not going to go to Canberra, could they have played a two-day game here under the conditions in Brisbane at the AB Field down the road?
“I get worried that the message clearly from the dressing room always has to be positive and protect what they’ve done, but so far they have to be brutally honest.
“They have to look themselves in the mirror, they have not got it right and they’ve got a long way to come back from because they’re going to go 2-0 down in the series.”
That played out on Sunday evening as Neser’s maiden five-wicket haul and some Steve Smith brilliance in the field set-up another dominant victory.
A series expected to be one of the most intense in recent memory has quickly turned into a cakewalk for the home side.
A team has come back from a 2-0 hole once in Ashes history, Don Bradman’s side that fought back for a 3-2 win close to a century ago in 1936/37.
When told that fact, Vaughan tried to offer Joe Root as a worthy comparison to The Don.
But he added a damning assessment of the ‘Bazball’ era.
“I just think they’re a side that good teams know how to play against,” he offered glumly.
“You dangle the carrot.
“(On Saturday night) I think there was about an hour and 12 minutes to go, when Ollie Pope was caught and bowled.
“There was no game plan to go ‘why don’t we just try to bat the day out, get here on day four when it will get easier to bat with three or four wickets down’.
“So often this England cricket team bring great entertainment, but they bring mistakes.”
During Sunday’s first session, Vaughan said since Perth, Trescothick and the team “had not spoken about the big drives” that keep bringing them undone.
Mark Waugh then replied: “What’s he getting paid for then? Do they have team meetings?”
Stunningly, they seemed reasonable questions.
Despite all the bravado, chest beating and insistence it knows what it’s doing, unless something changes in a hurry, England will return home without the urn for a fifth consecutive series.
Just don’t call them arrogant.
More Coverage
Originally published as One word the battling English side won’t cop despite 0-2 Ashes hole
Marsh open to Ashes recall as red-ball retirement looms
