Ashes woes a ‘wake-up’ call – Thorpe

GRAHAM Thorpe believes England’s under-performing batters have been handed “a wake-up call” by their Ashes travails.

With head coach Chris Silverwood in isolation due to the Covid-19 outbreak in the touring camp, Thorpe will step up from his assistant role to take charge of the New Year Test in Sydney.

England have drafted in former one-day captain Adam Hollioake, who lives on the Gold Coast, to bolster their depleted coaching ranks.

But at 3-0 down and with the series and the urn are long gone, there are no hiding places for a batting unit that has been ruthlessly exposed by Australia’s high-class pace attack.

No England player has made a century in the series, with captain Joe Root and Dawid Malan the only squad members to reach 50.

“They’re trying to learn in county cricket but the truth is when they come out of county cricket they have to learn again, because Test cricket is 10 times harder,” said Thorpe.

“County cricket is what it is, you’ve got to lift players out of there, then educate them into international cricket.

“When I look at the batting in general, I try to teach the basics of the game. We are trying to still educate some of the younger guys into that, the rhythm of Test match batting, playing situations in the game, doing it for long periods of time. Some of them haven’t been able to do it yet. Some people’s journeys are in different places.

“With some players it’s a wake-up call and could actually kick-start their careers because they’ve started training in a very, very different way. They don’t waste time fluffing, hitting halfvolleys.

“They’ve come up against some very good bowling attacks, who have been able to have a little watch of them and see where some of their Achilles heels are - and they’re having to face that reality.”

Meanwhile, Australia batter Travis Head has returned a positive Covid test, ruling him out of the fourth Test.

Head’s result came back after the latest round of PCR testing, forcing him into a mandatory seven-day isolation in Melbourne.

Match referee David Boon has also been forced to stand down from the New Year Test after contracting the virus.