Hyperbole is a favourite refuge of the sports fan, badger or casual, but in this case I find it appropriate. This England Test side is the worst it has been since I was born, let alone when I started seriously following it.
In this country we are no strangers to being butchered in Australia, four-one in 2001, five-nil in 2006/7, five-nil in 2013/14, four-nil in 2018/18 and surely five-nil this time barring some kind of Joe Root/weather based miracle.
So what actually makes this worse than every other series in which England have had catastrophic batting collapses?
I never tend to descend to words like ‘pathetic’ or ‘spineless’ when sports teams are involved, we are talking about human beings who are under immense pressure to perform for millions of viewers (despite not having a proper job) and this will put quite some strain on them.
That being said, this England showing is as close to pathetic as I’ve seen a sports team perform, and I watched Reading play under Jose Gomes.
Everything about this tour has been a disaster, from the circumstances surrounding touring at such a fraught time globally, after choosing to bail on a tour to Pakistan, right through to the final ignominy of collapsing for 68 this week, via year long selection issues.
Back in May, Chris Silverwood talked of using the home series’ against the top two sides in the world, New Zealand and India, as preparation for the Ashes.
This was considered stupid at the time, and just looks comical now.
This isn’t the place to go into England’s farcical fixation with the little Urn and the torment it brings them Down Under every few years, but their disrespect of New Zealand earlier this year is probably the clearest indicator of how deep it is.
England have been talking about rotating and mixing up their sides to best prepare for Australia for a number of years now.
There is no issue with this in a broader sense, blooding new fast bowlers, introducing players to the fold to develop along the cycle, could be considered good forms of preparation.
Where many draw the line however, is playing a weakened side against the number one side in the world, a New Zealand side who were soon to be crowned the inaugural World Test Champions in England’s back yard no less.
During the India series, which England lost, in which they were at least competitive, Silverwood went on to say that there would be ideally no debuts in the Ashes, meaning that Saqib Mahmood and Matt Parkinson would not be taken.
So, with all this planning, all this preparation, all this rotation, England were prepared for an away Ashes tour, knowing their best side, with a squad that could be rotated with players knowing their roles.
Hmm.
After four years of planning, England fielded a side containing Dawid Malan and Joe Root as their only competent batters, not so much of a cartel but more of a buffet of medium pace bowlers, and a finger spinner to be battered into submission and used incorrectly.
You may find yourself asking, ‘what has changed?’.
The answer to this is complicated, but the overriding instinct is that nothing has changed except the fact that last time Mark Stoneman, James Vince and Jonny Bairstow were decent.
The loss of Jofra Archer and Olly Stone to serious injury, depleting England’s premier fast bowling stocks from three to one could not have helped, but these were injuries that they were aware of for a long time.
Mark Wood, the third of this trio of Ashes saviours, has a similarly patchy injury record, so we find the logic behind the decision to neglect the development of talent such as Saqib Mahmood in the longer form of the game, lacking somewhat.
Mahmood’s Lancashire teammate, Matt Parkinson, also offers something that England do not possess, quality leg-spin. What better way to give him a debut than in sub-continent conditions in January, or home conditions in the summer before an Ashes tour?
Oh, nevermind.
It could be argued that England also have a dearth of quality in the spin department full-stop however.
Jack Leach is a fantastic bowler when faced with co-operative pitches, and right handed opposition, but when faced with a lack of turn and a middle order of lefties, he often looks reduntant.
Even with Leach selected on a seaming track against this leftie-laden top-seven, few could have anticipated Travis Head’s marauding, Gilchrist-esque take down of both Leach and Stokes.
This selection, Leach aside, best represents the muddled thinking that perhaps only a set-up WITHOUT A NATIONAL SELECTOR (we’ll touch on this in another article) could put to paper.
The first test was at the GABBA, an Australian fortress often nicknamed the GABBA-toir, but its latest slaughter had very little to do with Australian might.
The pitch was a fairly green surface, with plenty of seam movement on offer for the accurate bowlers and nothing for the spinners. So of course England selected one spinner, one fast bowler, and neither of Stuart Broad or James Anderson, go figure.
For the second test at Adelaide- a day-nighter under lights – England picked no spinner, and no pacer on a flat track with the possibility of turn later on, opting for a very basic view of the pink ball which seams a tiny bit more in Australia than usual, go figure.
England had given Jack Leach no hope of success in the first game, in which he was selected and picked apart, by which point they had no confidence in his ability coming into the only match of the series to which he was suited.
By the third test, Leach’s confidence must have been so low that there was very little point in selecting him at all, and this was proven by a performance with one wicket and a nought with the bat, bowled leaving a straight one.
Bad selections, poor coaching, mediocre-at-best captaincy and a closed boys club sense to English Test cricket have led to one of the most forlorn and fragile sides that England have ever had, one that is genuinely historically bad.
Michael Vince on Sport 