Why Strauss is the perfect man to save English cricket

This will be an absolutely gut-wrenching time for England. When you set out to compete in a big series and are then just blown away like they have been here in Australia, it is really disappointing for all concerned.

This is the third Ashes tour in a row where England have been comprehensively beaten — i was involved in the middle one —– so there has to be something intrinsically wrong.

Questions will be asked in England. Essentially, is the county competition producing players able to jump up to Test level, particularly away from home? The answer is obviously ‘no’ so it’s a question of doing something about it.

The need for change is such that i cannot see England solving problems overnight, or with a couple of tweaks here and there. Whatever changes are made to the system will take time to bear fruit.

Much of what England had wanted to do ahead of this trip was right. For instance, Chris silverwood wanted to come here with bowlers of extra pace but injury cost him two players he wanted to use — Jofra Archer, a huge miss, and Olly stone.

i wanted to do the same four years ago but there was no Archer or stone then and Mark Wood was a young bloke who was injured anyway. Unfortunately there weren’t many others with pace of a high enough calibre for us to pick and that is again something to work on now.

Wood has been terrific in Australia. he bowled really well without taking the wickets he deserved earlier in the series. in hobart, he showed that if you have extra pace you can shake up any batter, as long as you have the skill to put the ball in the right place.

Australia always seem to have two or three bowlers offering pace and bounce, not just one, and always have the ruthlessness you need to show with the ball.

But batting has been the big problem for England and i go back to that question of tempo and a positive mindset.

Yes, you do have to have a good defence to succeed in Test cricket but you have to be in the right frame of mind to take every opportunity to score. it just looked like we were — sorry, England were, i should say — in two minds on how to play.

There always seem to be thousands of words said and written at times like this about what is wrong and what should be done. But the time for talking is over now and England have to do something. it is time for action.

Actually doing something might prove difficult because there will be hurdles to climb to make sure everyone in the English game — administrators at the ECB and the counties — is on the same page.

The commitment to change has to be widespread, across the whole game. Let’s take what happened to white-ball cricket after the World Cup of 2015 as an example of what can be achieved.

something desperately needed to change and England’s commitment to improving after years of underachievement led to winning the World Cup of 2019 and formidable 50 over and T20 international sides.

The architect of that change, of course, was Andrew strauss as then team director. i believe he would be the perfect man to do the same for England’s red-ball game now, if his personal situation is such that he can devote the time to it.

i thoroughly enjoyed working with straussy. he is an intelligent man with an innate knowledge of the game and has wide-ranging experiences as a player, England captain and then an administrator.

England will be hard-pressed to find anyone better than him to pull this task off and get the team back on the right road in Test cricket. When i was with England, strauss (below) had this ability after a meeting to perfectly summarise what we were thinking and what needed to be done. Everyone understood his message.

There will obviously be calls for changes in personnel now but if England are going to go down that road, they have to make sure whoever they bring in is a better option than the people in place now. i do understand it is the fate of the coach to be in the firing line at times like this — sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes it isn’t.

But i also think it would be tough for silverwood or Joe Root to lose their jobs now when we all know the problems start well before they end up with a squad.

England have to get to the root of those problems. The issues to be resolved include playing too much cricket, too many players not showing the ambition to get to the highest level, preparing better wickets, playing first-class matches at the right time of year, maybe using a different ball and perhaps even ensuring a greater separation between the Test and white-ball sides. Otherwise, we are going to see the same story in Australia in four years.

There are so many people passionate about the long form of the game in England that i am optimistic change can happen. Yes, it might take time, but England is a country with a proud Test history and there are few prouder than Andrew strauss. i think he should be at the forefront of putting things right.