Ashes 2025/6
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When I think about England's preparation, the lack of work (proudly at times) and the lack of adaptation to conditions, it reminds me of a story about Matt Hayden preparing to go to India.
He hadn't had success in India, so he requested the groundsman in Brisbane prepare him a dusty pitch to mirror Indian conditions. He went out on the hottest days and had spinners bowling at him in a real match simulation and he'd bat all day with a break for lunch and a break for tea. Averaged over 100 for the series.
I don't know how you can be Brendan McCullum and look at that and think 'nah'. Because really that's exactly what his players should be doing if they actually want to take this seriously. But that's the truth of Bazball - freeing the arms and playing fast is more fun and it's less work. Who cares if you win or lose?
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The chat coming out of the England camp has been fucking stupid when you compare it to what has been produced on the field.
They're 0-3 down in the series, and they've barely won a session. Lots of tough talk, some weird revisionism as well. Regardless of what happens in Melbourne and Sydney this has been really bad.
Every time England looked to be getting themselves in to a position to apply real pressure to Australia invariably someone would play a stupid shot and get themselves out. I've hit 3 fours in an over? lets try and moon a 4th over cow. The defense of Brooke's reverse sweep has been hilarious, and has early selfish McCullum written all over it "oh that's how he plays". Getting clean bowled trying to reverse sweep a spinner doing absolutely nothing until that point? Hilarious.
The bowling plans were either so flawed they were laughable, or the bowlers didn't stick to the plan. Either way serving up short shit to get carted in every innings was pretty average.
They are just seemingly unwilling to do the tedious boring shit that makes up a lot of successful test cricket. Bat time. Hit the top of off over after aver. A completely ADHD cricket team.
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When McCullum is inevitably fired by England I really really hope NZC doesn’t even think of giving him a call.
He was great for nzc, he was one of the big reasons why the WC was special in 2015 but he’ would be completely wrong as a coach for us. -
Joe Root seems to be escaping criticism, but from someone who has been described as the best England bat of all time, has he been good enough? Good hundred at the Gabba, but his other scores have been 0, 8, 15, 19 and 39. All of which were high pressure digs when his team needed a score.
If England was to win these Ashes he needed to stamp his GOAT credentials all over the series, and while he's got the monkey off the back with the century he's been a non-factor outside of that. With inexperienced players around him (in Aus conditions), they really needed him to hang around and eke out a few more scores.
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Booze, Beach, Beaten - how England lost the Ashes:
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Forgot birdies in the title
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@barbarian said in Ashes 2025/6:
Joe Root seems to be escaping criticism, but from someone who has been described as the best England bat of all time, has he been good enough? Good hundred at the Gabba, but his other scores have been 0, 8, 15, 19 and 39. All of which were high pressure digs when his team needed a score.
If England was to win these Ashes he needed to stamp his GOAT credentials all over the series, and while he's got the monkey off the back with the century he's been a non-factor outside of that. With inexperienced players around him (in Aus conditions), they really needed him to hang around and eke out a few more scores.
Joe Root is in the discussion for best ever, not out and out. Hammond, Hobbs and Hutton are all worthy of the title and that’s just guys whose name starts with H.
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So disrespectful for the England cricket team to treat an Ashes tour like a stag holiday. What a dismal bunch of flops!
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@DaGrubster Like this.
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@sparky said in Ashes 2025/6:
Ben Duckett has been working hard on his shot selection on this tour of Australia.
Vodka, rum, tequila - he's ordered them all.
They do not appear to be that serious about this Ashes tour, it's just a big holiday down under
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@canefan Shades of the England Rugby team at the 2011 World Cup, but without the dwarf throwing.
The only good news for Ben Duckett is that it's not footage of him pissed as a newt at the cease, which is how he batted on a couple of occasions in those first three tests.
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The thing about Noosa is it seemed almost performative. Take their drinking for example - they seemed to spend all their time at Rococo bar, which is the one that everyone walks past to get to the better spots. You couldn't pick a more exposed spot if you tried. At least golf courses are private, leafy sort of places.
Go to the bar at the resort, or one a bit further down Hastings Street with less foot traffic.
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I find this all really strange - as far as I can tell there's no misconduct here. It all just feels like pearl clutching (would anyone care if they were winning?)
I wish we had more in depth analysis of the actual individual performances (although in fairness, I'm not closely following this specific tour, so maybe there is elsewhere and it just doesn't generate clicks so I don't see it... Which is probably also part of the problem, but I'm inferring the quality of coverage from the cricket I follow more closely).
It seems wrong that the highest quality analysis now are the commentators doing it live. Obviously they're good thinkers and I expect them to provide good analysis as the game goes on (another bugbear of mine with some comms), but after the match when you've had time to go through everything, I'd expect it to be even more in depth rather than just 'player X averaged 34.43 a middling tour' followed by a description of the most notable innings, which is often about the most in depth you see these days.
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all this shit does is reinforce that the only thing that matters is winning.
If the poms had held a couple of catches and played one or two more discreet shots, they would be lauded for escaping the pressure cooker of an Australian summer.
On the other hand, in October the narrative around the Australian coaches and selectors was one of conservatism so extreme it was actively holding back the team. The top order was in complete disarray, and there was no depth to Australian cricket. Now Andrew MacDonald and co are winners because they are so good at backing the playing group.
Win, and everything else fades away. lose and everything you do is wrong.
