“The thinking behind the selection of the team here in Adelaide was really worrying and confusing”; Speaking on the Sky Sports Cricket podcast, Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain and Rob Key discuss some of the reasons behind another Ashes loss to England in Australia.
England are 2-0 with their national team in both tests widely questioned
After a tough defeat in Adelaide, England are 2-0 down at The Ashes and their hopes are catching the ballot box are fading fast.
Despite a valiant effort on the final day from Jos Buttler, the Tourists fell in a 275-run loss as Australia took the last wicket early in the afternoon session.
With question marks on almost every aspect of the England team after the first two tests, talking about the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast, Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain and Rob Key reflected on what has gone wrong for England and why …
I thought England was poor at this game. Obviously they had a really good final afternoon where they fought wildly hard, showed a lot of spirit, and after Ollie Pope’s early departure, all the hitters really had to be rewarded so they could certainly be proud of the way they fought this. late.
But that was after four bad days, I thought England were outmatched in every facet of the game here. I thought they selected poorly, I thought their ball strategy was poor, obviously they didn’t get enough runs on a good shot from Adelaide; they were truly outmatched by Australia and Australia without two of their main bowlers, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.
What happened this afternoon shouldn’t camouflage that, although it was great to see that fighting spirit.
I’d like to point out that Australia’s bowling attack is excellent, and England just aren’t hitting well enough and haven’t for a long time.
That’s partly personal, one assumes it’s partly confidence now because when you go through a period of time where you’re not putting runs on the board, that confidence should start to wear off, but hitting is an individual game and while Root is getting careers, no one else is getting enough of them, and that’s simply a matter of staff.
The thinking behind the team selection here in Adelaide was really disturbing and confusing. When you looked at the selection of that team, for this surface, four kinds of new bowling throwers, five right-arm closers, all within a narrow pacing range, shutting out your extreme pacing man, resting, they said he was completely fit, resting for what? They are 2-0 down, and the roulette wheel.
It just didn’t make sense. I couldn’t see any situation where that selection made sense in this game and I find it quite disturbing because they have to talk about the selection obviously before the game and there is no cricket common sense that that team comes up with on that field. .
I think it went wrong again before a ball fell. For the life of me, I can’t understand how on a top green in Brisbane you win the toss and the bat and play a balanced attack with a roulette wheel, and skip Broad and Anderson, and then turn into a flat, hot dry in Adelaide, without clouds throughout the test match, and you play five closers and skip your roulette.
So again, like in the first test match, before a ball dropped, they are making poor decisions off the field. Then he catches (drops) again, wickets don’t come out of balls again, bowlers a bit short in length again, even his original ball was half a meter from where it should be in Adelaide, a mistake similar to what four made. years ago.
With all that, the bottom line is hitting. On a good pitch in Adelaide, they hit 230 in the first inning and 190 in the second, so hitting, with the exception of Root, continues to be a serious concern for English cricket.
It relies too much on Joe Root and has been for the last two years, in fact even more than that because we were talking like that when we said they depended on Cook and then Root. So it’s been a long, long time since we’ve been able to count on players coming in and getting runs.
The biggest concern of that, I think, is what do you do from here if you’re a coach in that setup? It’s the same with the twist, really. They made a shocking decision to leave the roulette out on this one and play him on a green seamer, but the fact remains that they don’t rate their roulette at all.
Same with hitting: what do you do? Who are you bringing? You basically have youngsters to get in. These guys like Rory Burns, folks like that, are the ones who are destined to be the older, reliable players who are destined to become good test cricketers at least.
If you are not getting that from them, then you are looking for your youngsters who should be there learning and taking it for a bit of experience.
