England have a lot of soul-searching to do following the 4-0 Test series defeat against Australia Down Under.
Here, we look at five reasons why the tourists failed to perform yet again away from home.
SENIOR PLAYERS DIDN’T TURN UP
The onus was on Alastair Cook to score big at the top of the order but he endured a woeful five Tests, his epic Melbourne innings aside when the urn was already lost, and there are serious questions marks surrounding his future now. Meanwhile, all-rounder Moeen Ali averaged well over 100 with the ball and less than 20 with the bat in a nightmarish return which only heightened England’s need for a specialist spinner. Stuart Broad also struggled on slow Australian decks as did injury-prone Chris Woakes.
THE BATTING DEPARTMENT FAILED TO DELIVER
Apart from Dawid Malan – England’s highest run-scorer in the series – not many English batsmen will come away from the latest drubbing Down Under without black marks against their names. Skipper Joe Root played well, scoring five fifties, but his inability again to convert half-centuries to tons is an issue weighing down an England batting line-up which is all too reliant on the captain. The likes of James Vince, who continues to look like a walking wicket outside off-stump, and Mark Stoneman’s inability to change his technique against the Australian quicks only compounded the misery. Three English hundreds compared to Australia’s nine, tells much of the story.
ONE-PACED ATTACK LOOKED PRETTY ORDINARY
Even at the age of 35, James Anderson claimed 17 wickets and proved he is England’s best bowler, still – but he along with the rest of the attack suffered a tough series. Alongside Broad and Woakes, the tourists didn’t have that much-needed express pace in Aussie conditions and a bowler who could hit the deck above 90mph or more. Fast bowlers of that ilk don’t grow on trees and while youngsters Craig Overton and Tom Curran showed some promise, England’s lack of pace and variety has haunted them away from home for years now when the ball isn’t swinging and seaming.
PLANNING AND PREPARATION NOT UP TO SCRATCH
England’s pre-Ashes Tour matches against substandard opposition didn’t replicate the class they would face come the first Test in Brisbane. Tight schedules in modern-day cricket make it difficult to organise competitive practice matches of old but England looked under-cooked – and failure to win the key moments in each Test – cost them dearly. Since the 5-0 debacle of 2013-14, little seems to have been done to buck the trend and questions need to be asked as to why England entered this series with the same problems. Seven Test series defeats on the bounce away from home makes for dire reading.
COACHING MINDSET TOO ONE-DAY FOCUSED
Coach Trevor Bayliss has without doubt been one of the key men behind England’s revival in limited-overs cricket but that attack-minded and expansive philosophy has proved to been their undoing in Tests. While other nations may see T20s and ODIs as the most important formats, for England, it will forever be five-day contests. A return of 15 victories and 18 defeats from 38 matches under his stewardship is not a record to be proud of. England’s batters, frequently, got themselves out with unnecessary shots more akin to short-form cricket. For a while now, batting big and for long has been a problem.
