Defeat hasn’t soured England’s team spirit
THE full house of all available England cricketers at the Christmas party in Melbourne yesterday at least backed up the team’s insistence that morale remains high despite another Ashes humiliation.
Unlike previous Christmas Day Ashes lunches, when there were always a handful of players — usually including Kevin Pietersen — preferring to eat elsewhere, the whole of the squad plus their families sat down at The Langham hotel.
The only absentee was Moeen Ali, who had to pull out to have an X-ray on an injured hand.
Four years ago Jonny Bairstow and Steve Finn swerved the meal, although remarkably Pietersen turned up having snubbed the last two Christmas occasions with his colleagues in 2006 and 2011.
Another surprise diner four years ago was Graeme Swann despite having quit international cricket after defeat in Perth. Captain Joe Root cited the retirement as one of the reasons things were a lot worse then compared to this tour.
Chris Woakes said of morale in the England dressing room: ‘There’s no bickering. A lot of the time when you start losing games, batters and bowlers’ camps are quite normal, but we’re trying to work with each other on plans.’
The entire set of players were also at a beach barbecue in St Kilda the night before along with management and support staff.
MELBOURNE Cricket Club look to have more faith than most in this England team — or perhaps they’re not overly keen on hosting the media. Either way, they have invited the working press to lunch in the Melbourne Cricket Ground committee room on day four of the Test, by when it may already be over, such is Australian dominance. BEN DUCKETT may have already had a bad-boy reputation with the England management forged on the Bangladesh-India tour last winter before the Perth beer- throwing incident.
But it’s emerging that his role in the drinking fest at the Avenue bar was no worse than anyone else’s that night, including numerous members of the Test side. However, Duckett (right) took the blame as a very convenient scapegoat for the ECB without further derailing the tour.
It’s also understood that two of the England drinkers that night hid from the security team so they could carry on boozing.
And when the ECB compile their reports on this so far woeful tour they should look at their cosy security team of father and son Reg and Sam Dickason plus Will Carr, who despite their top reputation, have had a shocker.
THE ECB, who don’t hide how much of their eight-city T20 tournament is going to be based on the Big Bash, picked the wrong game to showcase to the English media. The Melbourne Renegades scored a routine seven-wicket win over Brisbane Heat with the Etihad Stadium only a third full. The ECB, who have upset the 10 counties not due to host T20 matches with their ownership framework, have also bemused terrestrial networks who were told the whole competition would be shown on free-to-air television when TV negotiations started. However, only 10 live games a season will be on the BBC and the rest on Sky.