Bizarre Ashes photo proves England has officially lost the plot

England’s brains trust thought it was being clever during the second Test, but one photo shows why the Poms were a laughing stock.

England resorted to a short-ball barrage in Adelaide. Photo: Kayo/Fox Sports.

England’s misery has been compounded by “barren and stale” tactics, missed chances and baffling selection calls as Marnus Labuschagne and David Warner made the visitors pay on day one of the second Test in Adelaide.

Australia will start day two at 2/221 and the news only gets worse for England, with temperatures expected to hit 36 degrees in the South Australian capital.

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It was a dire day in the field for England on Thursday. Despite not letting Australia score freely, Warner hit 95 before clubbing a catch to Stuart Broad in the covers, while Labuschagne was dropped twice, including an absolute sitter from wicketkeeper Jos Buttler late in the final session, on his way to 95 not out from 275 balls.

Having dropped spinner Jack Leach despite being told by Adelaide Oval curator Damian Hough it would be a “mistake” to go into the game without a specialist tweaker, England went for a short-ball barrage.

That was a particularly odd approach considering Broad and James Anderson — who were both omitted from the first Test despite boasting 1156 Test wickets between them — were recalled in Adelaide and are experts at extracting seam and swing when conditions suit.

Bowling with the pink ball under lights is supposed to be the best time to move the ball in the air and off the pitch, but rather than bowl full, the tourists did the opposite.

Jos Buttler’s dropped catch was heartbreaking for the Poms. Photo by William WEST / AFP

Speaking after the day’s play, England assistant coach Graham Thorpe defended the plan to dig the ball in halfway down the wicket with a stacked leg-side field, and also stood up for selection calls that saw the side play five quicks, with captain Joe Root’s part-time off-spin providing the only variety.

“No, I think we picked the right team for this match,” Thorpe said. “Actually, I thought that on another day, we could have grazed the edge more and it could have been different on day one.

“(Bowling short) unsettles. It gives you an option and a way of attacking. I don’t think you can attack like that all the time due to what it physically takes out of your bowlers. They may all be right-arm bowlers but for me they’ve all got a slightly different style about them as well. We stuck at it well but we didn’t quite get the rub today.

“I don’t think our plans were too bad. If we’d bowled poorly, we would have gone for a lot more throughout the day. It’s not a case of feeling sorry for ourselves when we come in tomorrow again, it’s a case of trying to do very similar things and when it comes to our turn to bat, doing things for a long period of time.

“I think you saw that from the two players today, they did things well for long periods of time, and you can take advantage in the last session at times if you have an attack which is a little bit more tired. It’s very important that we’re able to make some inroads tomorrow.”

England tactics torn to shreds

The leg-side field was packed but it didn't work. Photo: Fox Sports

England appears to be alone in its belief it was onto a winner, as even Warner took aim at the Poms’ short-ball tactics.

In the last Ashes series in England, Warner was Broad’s bunny, getting out seven times in 10 innings to the bowler and scoring just 95 runs across five Tests. But he wasn’t challenged often enough on a good length as his innings wore on.

“That’s a tactic they have obviously tried to put through to us,” Warner said. “I don’t know why they were doing that. For us, you have to play each ball on its merits. Obviously here (the boundaries are) short square, so you have to back yourself to have a game plan and stick to that. They mix up their fields as well with different field placements and then from your perspective it’s about how you’re going to adapt to that situation.

“The length that they bowled here today isn’t hitting the stumps. That length there is hitting the stumps in England, and that’s the difference. I batted out of my crease and Marnus did as well to be able to leave the ball on a good length and we backed ourselves that the ball was going to go over the stumps. That was something that we learned from the Gabba.”

Former England captain Michael Atherton said on Sky Sports it was a “bad day” for England as any optimism from Pat Cummins being ruled out because of a Covid-19 scare “quickly dissipated”.

“Although David Warner struggled, he only scored a single in the first hour, it wasn’t easy going, you could see that the pitch was quite flat, there wasn’t any sideways movement and England picked a five-man seam attack that all looked fairly same-y, in a way reminiscent of what they did in 2017 when they said ‘we’re not going to go down that path again’,” Atherton said.

“Their tactics were barren and stale in the afternoon, reduced to just whacking it in halfway down, loads of men on the leg side and they were on their knees when David Warner gave them their second wicket. They should have had a third, Jos Buttler put down a terrible catch and put down two fairly straightforward on, both to Labuschagne.”

Stokes looked too tired to celebrate Warner’s wicket. Photo by William WEST / AFP

Atherton said England had made more selection blunders, not picking 150km/h paceman Mark Wood and Leach, who was dropped after Australia smashed him at the Gabba.

Fox Cricket commentator Shane Warne also slammed the selection.

“I’m not sure five seamers is the go,” Warne said. “On this flat pitch at Adelaide, yeah the pink pink ball starts to talk and hum a little but five seamers? I just think they’ve missed a trick here without playing a spinner.

“Now even if they had lost a little bit of faith in Jack Leach, which was probably too harsh because they only had 140 on the board in Brisbane and Australia went after him, I think you have to back him again in the second Test match.

“If you don’t back him again, well at least play (off-spinner) Dom Bess. What’s he here for? They (Australia) have got four left-handers in the top seven. If he’s an off-spinner spinning it away from the left-handers.

“I just don’t think you can go in with five seamers, especially when they all bowl at a similar pace around 130, just a bit more.”

England ‘getting it all wrong’

A bonkers field from England. Photo: Fox Sports

Social media was quick to react to the baffling tactics as England stacked the leg-side field and banged the ball in short, rather than looking for movement with the pink Kookaburra under lights.

In some cases, when bowling to Labuschagne, Root opted for only three men on the off side, with only one of those fielders in front of square. He had a point, gully and fine third man to go with a fine leg, deep square leg, forward square leg, backward square leg, short leg and mid-wicket.

There were similar fields when Steve Smith came to the crease late in the day’s play.

Cricket reporter Melinda Farrell said England wasted its opportunity, particularly in the night session.

“It’s felt like England have selected a team for these conditions, they’ve kinda played all day as if waiting for these conditions, and now these conditions have arrived they’re banging it in short & Root’s bowling to try and get to the new ball …” she wrote.

Former English first-class cricketer turned coach Ian Pont tweeted: “You know you’re getting it all wrong when even the Aussie commentators say England are bowling too short.”

Ex-England skipper Michael Vaughan said England seemed devoid of ideas.

“Fantastic Test cricket so far. Great to watch but I just feel England only having 1 point of difference in the attack and that’s Stokes bowling short in this heat won’t be enough. You need more than 1 in these conditions.”

Similarly, former England spinner Monty Panesar wrote: “Bowling short, sharp and into the body worked in 1932 and England tried to make it work 89 years later. There were just two problems: they only had one bowler Ben Stokes to do it. Why didn’t they pick Mark Wood?”

Why are we wanging it halfway down in twilight?

— Rory Dollard (@thervd) December 16, 2021

New ball with Oz 2-212. Memo England - if you’re beating the bat and not getting edges you’re bowling too short. How many players nicked off with the first new ball? Answer zero #Ashes

— Malcolm Conn (@malcolmconn) December 16, 2021

I understand the tactics of the Poms bowling short and slowing the run rate.

But if they finish the day with Australia 2-for, the English bowlers have used up a lot of juice for not much reward.

They've had no luck, of course, but hot tomorrow and they're bowling again#Ashes

— Scott Phillips (@TMFScottP) December 16, 2021