For Australia to fight back and win the first Ashes Test as decisively as they did, you wonder what scars will be left on the England team.<\/p>\n
What are they going to do for the rest of the series?<\/p>\n
I do not think anyone expected what happened on Saturday. When you look at the number of overs taken to complete the game, it was Test cricket on fast forward.<\/p>\n
England were well on top at lunch on the second day, 105 ahead with nine wickets in hand. The pitch was still doing plenty. It looked so tough for Australia to get back into the match.<\/p>\n
From that point, England’s shot selection was their big undoing. Scott Boland put in probably his worst performance in an Australia shirt in the first innings, then turned it around in the second to be the catalyst for the comeback.<\/p>\n
England’s batters were out trying to hit balls outside off stump, on the up, through the covers.<\/p>\n
Trying to score off those deliveries, with those shots, is the one thing you just do not do as a batter in Australia.<\/p>\n
It showed that England had not done their homework, are not able to adapt or are unwilling to adapt.<\/p>\n
There is a lot of talk about England’s method, their aggressive style. I witnessed it up close during the 2023 Ashes in the UK. Under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, they can be pretty stubborn when it comes to sticking with that method.<\/p>\n
It is fine on slow, low pitches. On the fast, bouncy pitches of Australia it is a method fraught with danger. If England do not reassess, they will struggle for the whole series.<\/p>\n
As a bowler, I would have always felt in the game against this England team.<\/p>\n
I relied on my accuracy, backing myself to hit the same spot on or outside off stump, with a bit of bounce and nip.<\/p>\n
Even if this England team was going well, I’d be licking my lips at the prospect of bowling to them, knowing one mistake could bring three or four.<\/p>\n
There are times when England can be a high-quality team. They have good players. Good players have skill, but great players have the mental toughness and attitude to be adaptable enough for the conditions.<\/p>\n
They would been shellshocked at the way things unfolded at Perth Stadium, devastated at the way they were beaten. Now we will see what they are made of. Even as a true blue Australian, part of me wants to see them change, just to show they can improve.<\/p>\n
It was almost the same with their bowling. England’s attack was very good on the first evening, then lost the plot when they were attacked on the second night.<\/p>\n
In Test cricket, all disciplines require a Plan B. Quite often it feels like England have one method, then nowhere to go if that does not work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Australia to fight back and win the first Ashes Test as decisively as they did, you wonder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-278909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}