The England media turned on Ben Stokes’ Bazballers after their day-two disaster in Perth, calling them gutless and questioning whether the Bazball era is imploding.
With the Poms now needing to win three of the next four Tests to regain the Ashes, serious questions are being asked about their cavalier batting tactics which triggered a collapse of 5-13 to throw the game away.
At The Telegraph, Nick Hoult summed up their effort as “gutless” after the eight-wicket defeat inside two astonishing days at Optus Stadium.
“Of all the many, many England defeats in Australia this one cuts the deepest. To be beaten in two days by eight wickets and bowled out quicker in a Test than at any time since 1904 is gutless enough.
“But to surrender a match-winning position so lamely in a Test of this magnitude, and destroying hope in such a self-destructive way, is far worse than the bleak, humiliating picture those statistics paint.
“This was England’s golden chance to go 1-0 up in an away Ashes for the first time in almost 40 years. But instead the tour is in danger of spiralling out of control and the whole Bazball project imploding.
“England were soft when it mattered and an Australian team staring at some serious bloodletting ambushed the first Test just like they did at Edgbaston two years ago. Now this trip threatens to go the same way as so many others to Australia: spiral out of control.
“The preparation for a Test of such importance was shambolic. They did not net at the WACA, the closest to the Perth Stadium pitch, and relied on an intra-squad knockabout on pudding at a club ground.”
Telegraph columnist Geoffrey Boycott had a blunt message for captain Ben Stokes.
“When you keep throwing away Test matches by doing the same stupid things it is impossible to take you seriously,” the former England opener wrote in his column.
“They never learn, because they never listen to anyone outside their own bubble, because they truly believe their own publicity.
“Now it has bitten them in an Ashes Test, the biggest challenge of all and unless they mount a spectacular comeback, they will regret it for a very long time.
“It is simple. Brainless batting and bowling lost England the match.”
The Times cricket correspondent Simon Wilde ranked this defeat alongside England’s worst catastrophes.
“It is not the decisive margin of the defeat that is the issue. Australia won by eight wickets, so no one would argue that they deserved the result. It is the possibility that something much better was within sight. Those are the ones that hurt.
“Everything was squandered in the space of a few scary, uncontrolled hours, nine wickets shed in 110 minutes, then the 205 runs the home side were left chasing leaked in just 28.2 overs.
“So congratulations, England, you turned a team that despise Bazball, and were struggling to lay bat on ball 24 hours earlier, into the greatest practitioners of Bazball in the world.
“England’s bowlers wilted in the face of an extraordinary assault from Head.
“The half-hour after lunch will go down in infamy … England have no chance in this series unless their batsmen learn to adapt, but the messaging from the management never changes. Keep doing what you are doing, only better. It’s not clear that they can.”
His stablemate at The Times, Alastair Cook, said England’s batters played at too many deliveries.
“Leaving the ball was important on a quick wicket, while attacking towards extra cover wasn’t a percentage play — England could have attacked in a smarter way, more square of the wicket.
“England need to find a way to bat for longer. In this Test they managed just under 68 overs, which, even on a pitch that is helpful to the bowlers, is not going to be enough to win a Test.”
Fellow former England captain Mike Atherton said Head’s hundred beat England at their own game.
“Almost 20 years ago, just across the river, Adam Gilchrist made the fastest hundred in Ashes cricket, but the impact of this one is greater, coming as it did in the opening Test of the series when everything was on the line,” he wrote in his column for The Times.
“The seeds of England’s defeat were sown elsewhere, of course, in two horrible batting collapses and in the magnificent left-arm bowling of Mitchell Starc.
“From a position at lunch where they should have been able to close out the game, England lost nine wickets in a session to some poorly executed shots. It showed their propensity, once again, for leaving the door ajar instead of slamming it shut in the opposition’s face.
“Of all the defeats of the Bazball era, this was the most discouraging.
“The game was there for the taking; a glorious opportunity gone begging.”
For The Guardian, Simon Burnton said England paid the price for their bluster.
“A team that refuse on a point of principle ever to rein themselves in.
“Remorse just slips off them, like honey from an oiled spoon. It is a compulsion that makes them so compelling and so many of their Tests so entertaining.
“It might also have stopped them winning a few more of them.”
For The Independent, Cameron Ponsonby struck on a similar theme of England’s wasteful tactics.
“Over the last 15 years and more, you’d have thought England had found every possible way to lose Test matches in Australia. Somehow, they found a new one.”
>Cricket News
%20(3).jpeg)
0 Comments