ENGLAND, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Coach admits English cricket is in serious trouble and nobody is safe after Ashes debacle
BEATEN, exposed and just not good enough is the damning verdict from within the England dressing room after another horror Ashes tour comes to a winless end.
Everyone involved with England should be looking over their shoulder, because this tour, on and off the field, has been an embarrassment.
Australia battered England into submission at the SCG as Shaun Marsh and brother Mitchell hit hundreds and helped post the fifth score above 600 against the tourists in the last two years.
That is five of the top 12 totals England have ever conceded in more than 141 years of cricket coming against this group of players. They have a problem.
It is not their only issue of course, they have also been repeatedly unable to match those high scores by other sides.
Winning away from home is proving increasingly difficult for all international teams, but the way England have been blown away without landing a glove on either Australia or India over the last two winters suggests deep-rooted flaws. Yet another brutal day saw England wilt in the hottest temperature ever recorded in Sydney, 47.1 degrees.
Just as they thought the tour could not get any worse, the torrid conditions took their toll on captain Joe Root. He was taken to hospital suffering from severe dehydration, vomiting and diarrhoea.
“The last few days have summed up where we have been,” admitted assistant coach Paul Farbrace. “We just haven’t been good enough.
“We have talked a lot about getting in good positions, we have had glimpses and had two sessions where we have played good cricket, but we have not been good enough over a day to put Australia under pressure.
“When you come away from home in a series like this, it does expose issues we have in the team. We have a choice. “We either say we have had some really good positives or be honest and say there are certain areas that are not good enough and we have got to do something about it. “And that’s every one of us – players, staff, structures, set-up, preparation – everybody needs to look very closely and ask if we have the right people in the right places. Are we doing the right things in the right way?”
There is no doubt that England have been hampered by injuries and the loss of Ben Stokes, but in the batting and spin departments they have been found badly wanting.
Opener Mark Stoneman (inset, top) has barely scored a run since being hit on the helmet in Perth. The selection of James Vince (inset, bottom) has to be one of the brutally honest conversations after he gave his wicket away in such familiar style it could be called ‘doing a Vince’.
He is not alone in having a poor tour, but he is a symbol of what went wrong on this trip and England must learn from it.
Farbrace added: “If England are serious about coming back here and winning in four years’ time, planning needs to start in the next couple of days.
“We need to start identifying the type of personnel you need, character-wise and skill-wise, to come here and win.”