Time for change
England begin ‘soul searching’
England and Wales Cricket Board officials have opened talks with their counterparts at Cricket Australia over how to make the Ashes more competitive as the tourists enter what chairman Colin Graves admits will be a period of “soul-searching” after their 4-0 series defeat.
England were comprehensively outplayed throughout the series, but Graves is adamant there will be no “witch-hunt” and that coach Trevor Bayliss still retains the full support of his employers.
But there are set to be changes to the structure of Ashes tours after Graves said he was talking to James Sutherland, the Cricket Australia chief executive, about how to make them a more even contest with just two of the nine Ashes series this century won by the away team.
Talks are only at a preliminary stage but one step will be to improve the standard of warm-up opposition. England played three matches before the first Test against a Cricket Australia XI made up of second-team state players. Australia face similarly weak county teams when they tour England.
There is also a realisation that cramming five Tests into little more than six weeks is gruelling for the players. Under the new future tours programme, one-day series will be split into separate tours from Tests. It could allow for more time to spread out Test matches.
“We have a very good relationship with Cricket Australia and we are already talking to James Sutherland,” said Graves.
No matter what changes are made to the schedule, Graves admits England must take their own steps to ensure they are better prepared to win in Australia in four years’ time.
Changes to the team are likely to start next summer, rather than for the forthcoming tour of New Zealand, and Graves is backing Andrew Strauss, director of England cricket, and Tom Harrison, chief executive, to make the right decisions when they sit down and review the winter. “Everyone is very disappointed. Everyone gave their all but we have to do things better going forward,” Graves said.
“There is no specific review. We have Andrew Strauss and Tom Harrison in charge and I trust them completely to make the right decisions. There will be no witch-hunt. We have to look at it and see how we can improve so in four years’ time we are better placed to win than we were this time.”
Joe Root has already indicated he wants to captain England in Australia in 2021-22, and become the first player since the 1920s to lead the team on two Ashes tours.
His series ended in sickness and a hospital visit.
As the Ashes trophy was handed to Australia, England players turned off the lights in the dressing room so Root could sleep off his stomach virus, with vice-captain James Anderson doing media duties. It summed up the tour.
As for immediate changes, the options are limited. England have always viewed this winter as a whole so changes for New Zealand appear unlikely. James Vince and Mark Stoneman are the batsmen under pressure with Moeen Ali and the backup seam bowling other areas of concern.
Stoneman and Moeen will go to New Zealand, but Vince is sweating on his place. Gary Ballance appears most likely to be left out with Liam Livingstone a potential replacement. A young fast bowler such as George Garton of Sussex offers a fresh alternative on the seam bowling front, although Anderson confirmed he intends to carry on until the next Ashes series in 2019.
“I’m still as hungry as ever,” he said. “I never like to look too far ahead but I’d really like to be around in 2019.”
The end of the series brought into focus some of the issues that have dogged the team during the tour, with an acceptance in recent weeks within the ECB and the England side that they were too slow to realise the consequences of the Ben Stokes arrest in September and the effect it would have on this tour.
The ECB expects the Stokes situation to become clearer with a charging decision from the Crown Prosecution Service a possibility this week. Once the CPS has made an announcement the board will meet within 48 hours to decide his England availability.
His arrest was arguably the key moment in England’s winter, with the ECB introducing new policies after the difficulties of the first few weeks – some of which they admit were badly handled.
When the story involving the alleged headbutt by Jonny Bairstow on Cameron Bancroft broke during the fourth day of the first Test, England let the issue fester for 24 hours, partly because Bairstow was unable to remember exactly what happened and the ECB feared footage could emerge that would contradict any statements hastily issued while they looked into Bairstow’s explanation.
An angry Strauss delivered a dressing down to the whole team and slapped in place a midnight curfew that holds even for the oneday series over the next few weeks.
Strauss went home during the Adelaide Test and in his absence Ben Duckett, a Lions player, was disciplined for throwing a drink over Anderson in the same Perth bar where Bairstow butted Bancroft.
The team were sent an email from Harrison reminding them of their responsibilities as England players as the ECB worried about nervous sponsors and the damage a boozy image could do to their new family-friendly Twenty20 tournament.
It did not make the chief executive universally popular, particularly among senior players, who felt patronised by the midnight curfew but the board believed it had to act after a second incident in three weeks.
Since then there have been no further reports of poor off-field behaviour. As a result, one of the first changes for England will be the hiring of a team manager for next winter’s tours to handle all discipline and be a point of contact for non-cricketing matters.
Now Bayliss has to pick this team up with the one-day series and Twenty20s still to be played in Australia before a twotest series is tacked on in New Zealand.