England need help to recover from World Cup hangover
England can still fight back from 1-0 down, but must find a cure for any World Cup hangover that leaves individuals unable to hit playing heights required for Ashes success
‘There must be honest conversations because Joe Root needs 11 players in right frame of mind’
England have recovered from 1-0 down in an Ashes series before. It happened in 1981 and 2005, but I worry they are not playing with enough confidence to emulate those comebacks.
The problem for this England side is that already they are pondering changes to the team and Australia landed a few psychological blows in the first Test. I worry this could be a very messy series for England and it is important people understand how difficult it is for some of these players to raise themselves after the World Cup.
People will say it is an Ashes series and you should not need any motivation to play against Australia. But it is difficult to deal with success, particularly if winning the World Cup is the biggest achievement of your career. England must have some honest conversations with players, regardless of their seniority, because what Joe Root needs next week is 11 players desperate to be out there. Let’s be honest, at Edgbaston it looked like England had only seven players. You can say they had technical deficiencies but I just looked at their mindset and it was not right. It is why I say they need honest chats.
If they say it was just a bad week and they found it difficult to come back once the Aussies got on top, then fine. That happens.
But if one or two have a hangover from the World
Cup this is when David Young, the team psychologist, has to do his work. He
did a great job during the World Cup, lifting the players after they lost to Australia so they won their next four games to take the trophy. He now has to do a job for Root and find out exactly where the players are at and then report back to the management. If one or two players are struggling mentally then do not pick them for Lord’s. It is not a case of being dropped. It is just being realistic that an Ashes might be a little bit too much after the pressure of winning a World Cup.
In 2011, India won the World Cup and lost their next Test series on English soil. In 2015, Australia won the World Cup and lost their next Test series in England, too. It happens. To think these players are robots who can turn it on whenever they want and can shut out emotion is nonsense. Over the next week England have to find the ones who are too tired and need a break. Root needs 11 completely dedicated cricketers next week. You have to be desperate to play Test cricket, hit loads of balls in the nets and work on your game. Look at Rory Burns: he was desperate to be a success and went back to his old cricket coach and scored a hundred in the first Test.
Do Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali have that same state of mind? Are they desperate to find a way? Do they have the energy in the tank to do so? I would not be surprised if they do not, which is why this is a time for honesty.
A week off doing nothing and thinking they will come back and hit a red ball better is wrong. Facing a red ball is completely different to facing a
white one. A white ball does nothing. You can hit through the line with confidence. The red ball nibbles. It moves around and you need a technique to deal with it, move your feet and survive.
It is a tough balancing act because Buttler, and one or two others, need a break, but they also have to spend two or three days with the coaches hitting red balls to right what went wrong. If they lack the desperation to do that then they will struggle because Test cricket is hard. If you have a bad day in one-day cricket it matters less. You have a couple of days off, then the next game and you start again. In Test cricket, you have one bad day, and you know what? You have four more to follow and it pecks away at your mind.
This is the trick of management. I have always said you look after the person, not the player. Ben Stokes and Root love playing cricket and will just get on with it. Others are struggling. This is where the management have to help the captain by working with those individuals. I was lucky because I had good management around me in 2005. People give me credit for the management, but I had a great backroom team.
You need different people looking after different groups of individuals. If players had a technical problem they went to Duncan Fletcher for advice. Matthew Maynard was great at working with those who liked a cigarette. He put his arm around them and gave them some good advice while relaxing having a fag. Those who wanted a little bit of b---s--- came to me.
We have to be careful. This England team can surprise us all. But I fear this series could go badly wrong if they do not address these problems. If they are all fit, able and desperate to play I would not make many changes, apart from Jofra Archer for James Anderson. Do not panic. Sam Curran could come in for a batsman and everyone else gets pushed up a spot; he would take the workload off some of the bowlers. Jack Leach can offer that left-arm threat to Steve Smith, too. But I am not one for making big changes after one Test unless their minds are not right. That is the most important thing.