THE GABBA — Mike Tyson famously once said: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
England’s cricketers know exactly what that feels like, with their Ashes hopes all-but gone after the beating they’ve taken over the first six days of this series.
Australia, a weakened but streetwise opponent, are the masters of adapting to the situation, dusting themselves off when getting caught square on the jaw and somehow finding a way to fight back.
It’s why they are 2-0 ahead in this series, with the knockout blow in this second Ashes Test coming early in the final session of day four when they chased down their paltry target of 65 in just 60 balls.
Smith finished England off in swashbuckling style (Photo: PA)England now head to the Queensland coastal resort of Noosa, where after clearing their heads and playing some golf, they will have to come to terms with the size of the task that now awaits.
Only one team in history, the Australians of 1936-37 who had Don Bradman in tow, have won an Ashes series from 2-0 down.
But the equation for Ben Stokes and his team now is simpler than that. They have to win the third Test in Adelaide next week otherwise their pursuit of the urn will be over, and the wait for an English Ashes series win lengthened to 12 years by the time the next one rolls around on home soil in 2027.
Keeping the series alive until Christmas is the absolute minimum requirement for this England team. Failure to do so would put coach Brendon McCullum and managing director of cricket Rob Key under severe pressure. Their jobs might not rest on the result of the third Test. But they really should.
More than 40,000 travelling fans are expected in Australia throughout the series. The majority are due in for the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne and the final Test in Sydney.
To have the series over by then as a contest would not only be a betrayal of the loyalty of those supporters but a depressingly familiar tale for everyone who has followed England’s fortunes in this country since they last won here in the winter of 2010-11.
Ben Stokes is GONE Watch #TheAshes LIVE on TNT Sports and discovery+ pic.twitter.com/m7ojChb3za
— Cricket on TNT Sports (@cricketontnt) December 7, 2025Bazball has treated us all to some great moments since McCullum and Stokes joined forces in the summer of 2022. They have done enough remarkable things for the judgement on this regime to be delayed until after Adelaide.
The signs, though, are not good. For a team so highly rated, these first two Tests have been the mother of all anti-climaxes.
An ageing and imperfect Australia, missing key fast bowlers Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood through injury, are weaker now than at any point since 2010-11.
England, buoyed by a positivity that allows the players to express themselves, were meant to be competitive in this series. Over the first two Tests they have been anything but.
It’s great the players are now unburdened by the pressure that has suffocated so many of their predecessors.
But there has been a collective abdication of responsibility on this tour so far, from Key down.
For highly rated, we can now say they have been grossly overrated. Only something special in Adelaide can change that impression.
There seems to be an arrogance, denial and delusions of grandeur, too, seemingly emanating from McCullum, the aloof Kiwi who is the only England national team coach who refuses to do press conferences after matches. Possibly uncomfortable with the hard questions that will come his way, he chose only to speak to a handful of journalists for a pooled interview after this debacle of a defeat. The word gutless comes to mind.
The lack of contrition so far on this tour has also been breath-taking. As has the reluctance to admit they didn’t prepare well enough for a series of this magnitude. Those questions can come later, once the Ashes are lost – a fate that now seems inevitable.
That’s because this England team have been such slow learners here, refusing adapt their aggressive style of play even when all the evidence pointed to the folly of their ways.
In a land where the very mention of Bazball draws derision, the whole touring party has seemed reluctant to countenance any adaptation at all – as if the fact that their ethos has been attacked has made them even more evangelical.
So far in this series they have been repeatedly punched in the face and struggled to find a Plan B. Instead, they look a punch-drunk unit stumbling into one of the worst Ashes series defeats of the modern era, quite something when you think about how bad England have been Down Under recently.
Yet the record of ceding an away Ashes in 12 days set during a pandemic-affected series in 2021-22 will be broken if they are defeated in Adelaide. Remarkable.
They did try and adapt on the final day here, Stokes and Will Jacks knuckling down for 36.4 overs to at least make Australia bat again. But it was too little, too late.
To the true believers of Bazball, this has all been a shock. Against India last summer this team showed glimpses of ruthlessness and grit that suggested that they were in fact evolving.
What we’ve seen over the first two Tests has revealed an uncomfortable truth – England have regressed and, drunk on their own hype, they failed to see this coming.
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