England on fast Root to humiliation

BOOKIES PREDICT 5-0 TO AUSSIES AFTER THRASHING AT THE GABBA

ENGLAND find themselves staring down the barrel of yet another Australian Ashes nightmare.

And after a dismal first Test thrashing the bookies have made a 5-0 whitwewash the favourite scoreline.

It is a damning state of affairs when the market is saying the most likely thing to happen over the course of the next four matches is that England will lose every time.

That is despite the prospect of different conditions, with two of the clashes being day/night games plus all the other variables on offer,

But it is hard to argue against the odds when Joe Root’s side have just been humbled by nine wickets in just over three days of cricket to complete a 10th defeat out of 11 Down Under.

The minor rally on day three, when Root and Dawid Malan (right) just about batted England back into the contest, was snuffed out with interest on day four.

Their tame dismissals formed part of an eight-wicket collapse for just 74 runs inside a session. It was abject stuff from England’s batsmen once again in a depressingly familiar trend that stretches back years but has reached a new level of ineptitude in 2021.

Just imagine how bad it would be if Root himself was not having the greatest year of runscoring in his career so far.

When it comes to Root’s batting he has been nearing perfection during the last 12 months. He has continued to churn out the runs that should be launching England’s Test team into the stratosphere.

But instead, the paucity of support elsewhere means England have lost three out of four series and are already on course to lose another.

Naturally the England captain would not begin to entertain such a negative viewpoint, instead suggesting his middling side might have the wherewithal to strike back and regain The Ashes from behind on Aussie soil for the first time since 1954/55.

It would be fanciful stuff even if Root had a truly great team at his disposal. But he is trying to squeeze every last drop out of a group that are yet to show they can produce much beyond mediocrity.

“It is important in a five-match series not to feel too sorry for ourselves,” he said. “We need to relish the challenge to go out there and try and get one back.

“We are a team who responds well to situations like this. We are not scared of a challenge or a difficult result.

“I’ve said if we go about things exactly how we did on the last two tours we’re going to get the same results. So we have to be brave, we have to do things differently to previous tours and we have to be confident that we can take the game to the Aussies and get the result we want in Adelaide.”

If England are to stun us all in Adelaide next week, then they will have to be near to perfect in everything they do.

There is no wriggle room for this team. They have not got the luxury of looking to their teammates to pick up the slack.

This year, players picked for their batting ability have walked to the middle 183 times and only seven times between them did someone reach three figures. Only once was it someone other than Root.

Rather than reaching for the stars, they could actually just try reaching for their level.

To make matters worse, the entire team were fined 100 percent of their match fee by the ICC for a slow over rate, and also docked five Test Championship points, too.

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