England’s Ashes hopes have been torpedoed in just 11 days of cricket. But how have a team who were so highly fancied before the series began been so poor?
The mistakes that contributed to perhaps the biggest anti-climax in British sport since the Scotland football team’s doomed 1978 World Cup campaign in Argentina are myriad.
Here’s a rundown of why this tour of Australia has gone so wrong…
13 reasons why England lost the Ashes
Dropping Ben Foakes after last year’s tour of India
The best wicketkeeper in England, and probably the world, admitted he “wasn’t very Bazball”. But Australia’s Alex Carey has shown during this series just how important the position is.
England’s Jamie Smith has had a tough time of it in Australia both behind the stumps and with the bat. His talent is obvious but did England miss a trick by dumping Foakes after the 4-1 series defeat in India at the start of last year?
The Surrey gloveman initially lost his place before the 2023 Ashes, when Jonny Bairstow took over wicketkeeping duties before he was recalled for India, where having the best man behind the stumps is essential.
"They've outplayed us with the bat, they've outplayed us with the ball and they've outplayed us in the field."
England head coach Brendon McCullum speaks after losing The Ashes to Australia.
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But Foakes was also Bazball’s safety valve with the bat in the first 18 months of Brendon McCullum’s tenure as head coach. His unbeaten century in the must-win Test against South Africa at Old Trafford in the first summer of the new regime in 2022 was the best example of this.
England had slipped to 147 for 5 but Foakes helped rebuild the innings and ensured his team got a match-winning total. It feels like his inability to get England over the line in the one-run defeat against New Zealand at Wellington in early 2023 caused him huge reputational damage.
Yet Foakes’s patient approach with the bat was a neat counterbalance to the unbridled aggression shown by so many others in Bazball’s early days.
Failing to invest in a proper successor to James Anderson
England’s greatest bowler was killed off in the bar of a Manchester hotel in the spring of 2024 when the news was dropped by McCullum, who’d flown in from New Zealand especially, captain Ben Stokes and managing director Rob Key.
“As I walk towards them, it hits me cold. This isn’t a team appraisal, is it?” Anderson recalled in his book. “I feel like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, ushered into a room under the impression I’m going to get made, only to be shot. You f******.”
The plan to replace Anderson centred around Gus Atkinson, who upstaged him in his final Test at Lord’s last year. But Key’s obsession with bowlers who could hit upwards of 85 miles per hour ruled out a number of other potential alternatives.
Sam Cook played his one and only Test for England against Zimbabwe last summer (Photo: Getty)Chief among them was Essex’s Sam Cook, whose 300-plus first-class wickets at 20 were ignored until his call-up for last summer’s one-off Test against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge. The 28-year-old admitted he didn’t have a great game because he was so overawed by the occasion.
But his inclusion felt like a token gesture from a regime who didn’t believe in him.
Why wasn’t he supported? Why wasn’t the best bowler in domestic cricket over the past eight years given another shot during the series against India that followed? He’d had a good England Lions tour of Australia last winter.
And England’s obsession with speed saw them become one-dimensional in a series where Australia’s Scott Boland and Michael Neser, skilful bowlers who aren’t express pace, prospered on pitches that had something in them.
Brendon McCullum taking over the white-ball teams
The Kiwi spread himself too thinly when becoming all-format coach in January. Results – 21 losses in 39 games across Tests, T20s and ODIs – have been terrible. The magic has waned and it seems like his focus on Test cricket has been compromised.
Sacking most of the specialist coaches
McCullum has streamlined the coaching team in a bid to cut the number of voices in the dressing-room. But it has also meant the team came into this series without a specialist fielding coach, wicketkeeping coach, full-time bowling coach or nutritionist. The lack of care for the finer details has been costly here.
Keeping faith with Ollie Pope last summer
Ollie Pope is facing significant calls to be dropped due to a string of poor performances (Photo: Getty)Everyone knew Pope should have been dropped as England’s No 3 at the start of last summer. The Zimbabwe Test seemed like a goodbye, with Jacob Bethell set to come in for the India series.
But the Bazball “brains” trust lost their nerve. So rather than having a summer bedding in to the role against high-quality opposition, Bethell is now likely to be pitched into the middle of an unwinnable Ashes series at the MCG on Boxing Day.
Picking one spare batter in the squad
Bethell is the only spare batter in Australia. There’s no opening cover or spare keeper-batter. The least they could have done is call-up Jordan Cox, who’s playing in the IL T20 in the United Arab Emirates instead.
Picking so many Test players for the white-ball tour of New Zealand
Eight of the Ashes squad were called up for the white-ball tour that preceded this. Why didn’t England just send shadow squads to fulfil their contractual obligations and allow the Test guys to get to Australia earlier?
Failing to prepare properly for this series
England’s Ashes warm-up preparations were deemed heavily insufficient (Photo: Getty)Just one warm-up game at Lilac Hill in Perth, a club ground where the pitch was more akin to Wickham Market than Western Australia. The players hated the grassy outfield and low, slow surface. India trained for eight days at the Waca before their series here last winter.
Apparently, a Sheffield Shield game scheduled for the Waca couldn’t be moved. Really? Why didn’t England insist on somewhere more suitable to warm-up for the bouncy, quick Optus Stadium?
They also turned down the offer of a warm-up match at a Test venue against Australia A. They should have had at least two warm-up games, preferably against Aussie opposition, at suitable venues before the first Test. The lack of planning and preparation is unforgivable.
Riding scooters without helmets
The media attention on the squad has been intense. So why did the players think riding scooters without the proper headgear in a country obsessed with health and safety regulations was a good idea? It was an easy win for the Aussie media, with one paper branding the trio of Smith, Stokes and Mark Wood “Pommy idiots”.
squareCHRIS STOCKSBrendon McCullum's position is now untenable
Read More Not playing a pink-ball warm-up before Brisbane…
We’re back to preparation again. This time before the day-night Test at the Gabba. The pink-ball game in Canberra, where conditions are nothing like the Gabba, was a bad idea.
But could they not have scheduled that game for another ground in Brisbane? There were plenty of options. England had not played a pink-ball Test for two years and many of the current squad had never played one.
…then saying the team were ‘overprepared’
Oh McCullum, what were you thinking? Training for five days in the nets to make up for a lack of proper preparation is not being “overprepared”. You just sounded tone deaf and deluded.
The ‘mid-series break’ to Noosa
This definitely wasn’t a holiday. England were very careful about how they phrased this break. Nor a stag do, despite the fact the players got on the booze for four days straight after a couple of warm-up days in Brisbane.
They deserved a break somewhere, but Noosa? A tiny resort with one street where the Aussie media were always going to have a field day.
Could you not have gone somewhere a bit more inconspicuous, lads? Early in the series, McCullum said the team “don’t do optics”, unless, I guess, if they’re behind a bar.
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Taking a punt on Shoaib Bashir
They groomed the young spinner for two years, namely because of his “high release point” and ability to get bounce on Aussie pitches. He’s not played a game here, with part-timer Will Jacks filling in instead.
What the hell were you thinking? Liam Dawson, Jack Leach or Rehan Ahmed might have been handy alternatives but they banked on Bashir and found out their investment was as sound as putting your life savings into a crypto scam.
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