Lack of meaningful preparation and injuries have not helped England in Australia but batting collapses, sloppy fielding and debatable selection has left the tourists with a mountain to climb to get back in the Ashes series
Tuesday 21 December 2021 12:03, UK
It would be inaccurate to say England's Ashes travails are entirely self-inflicted.
Australia, let's not forget, are a fine Test team, with three world-class batters in Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith and David Warner and a top-drawer bowling attack, albeit one that has been depleted in this game by the enforced absences of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.
Man for man, it is hard to argue that Australia are not the better side.
Australia are also used to these conditions and England simply are not, with the tourists' preparations severely hampered by Covid quarantine, a lack of meaningful warm-up games and then rain, lots of rain, hitting the internal practice fixtures they did have scheduled.
It's not quite the meticulous pre-series prep against quality opposition Sir Andrew Strauss' 2010/11 Ashes winners enjoyed, is it?
Strauss' men were battle-hardened, Joe Root's are battle-shorn. Strauss' side were red-hot ready, Root's side well undercooked.
England's plan this time around, of course, was to pummel Australia with pace. Head coach Chris Silverwood having earmarked Mark Wood, Jofra Archer and Olly Stone as the supersonic seamers that could rough up the Baggy Greens. As it is, Silverwood only has one available, Wood, with elbow and back injuries sidelining Archer and Stone respectively.
Then there are the wider issues of whether the oft-criticised county structure is hampering England's ability to win Test matches away from home, with red-ball cricket pushed to the margins of the season and white-ball cricket king in the middle.
That arguably makes it difficult to produce a battery of ferocious fast bowlers and high-quality spinners and, as a result, also for batters to get used to facing bowlers of that type on good pitches.
When England come up against Mitchell Starc's pace and Nathan Lyon is turning the ball, it is a world away from what they are used to in county cricket where medium-pace bowling and green pitches prevail.
Green pitches that also make scoring runs an unenviable task and hardly build confidence among batters, as England's long-time search for players to support Root and Ben Stokes probably testifies.
Once again, that is not the fault of Root, his players or Silverwood. Decisions on structure are taken above their heads, albeit that the head honchos at the ECB could do worse than heed Root's words on the domestic set-up following England's away defeat in India earlier this year.
So, yes, England's Ashes woes are not entirely self-inflicted but they aren't helping themselves either with a series of debatable decisions surely assisting Australia as they close in on a 2-0 series lead.
Selection calls meant England omitted both James Anderson and Stuart Broad on a Brisbane green top and then ended up with five English-style seamers on a dry Adelaide surface crying out for the point of difference that Wood's pace and some frontline spin would have provided.
Writing in his Daily Mail column, Sky Sports Cricket's Nasser Hussain said: "You simply cannot put all your eggs in one basket. England picked the side in Adelaide they should have played in Brisbane. They should not have picked five English-type seamers just because it is a day-night Test."
For all the planning Root and Silverwood stressed England had done before this trip, they are probably guilty of over-planning and second guessing themselves. What they are definitely guilty of is handing Australia some early Christmas presents.
Dropped catches, missed run outs and costly no-balls prevented England from removing David Warner more cheaply in Brisbane than for the 94 he ended up making, while a number of blemishes in Adelaide allowed the gum-chewing Marnus Labuschagne to score 103, his sixth Test century in 20 matches. Mis-fields and bowling a tad short have been other faux pas.
Loose strokes while batting have also contributed to England's downfall, with Root's side rolled for 147 on the opening day in Brisbane and then losing eight wickets for 74 runs on the fourth day at The Gabba.
It was a similar story on day three in Adelaide with much of the hard work done by Root and Dawid Malan as they propelled their side from 17-2 to 140-2 at dinner then undone by a cluster of avoidable wickets.
Root fiddled outside off stump and snicked a Cameron Green delivery he could have left. Malan cut a ball that was too close to cut and fell to Starc.
A seemingly befuddled Ollie Pope tamely worked Lyon to short leg after advancing down the pitch. Jos Buttler - perhaps with his mind still cluttered after dropping Labuschagne on 21 and 95 on day one - was seduced into driving at a ball that angled across him and departed for a 15-ball blob.
Those wickets followed Haseeb Hameed skewing debutant Michael Neser to mid-on late on day two. Soft dismissal, after soft dismissal for England. This Australia side is good enough already, they don't need to be festooned with gifts.
A 2-0 scoreline looks somewhat inevitable, even though there is rain forecast for Adelaide on Sunday and cricket, as Stokes proved at Headingley in 2019, has the capability to amaze.
If defeat is the result, though, England have no option but to believe they can still make it 3-2 by winning in Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart. They wouldn't be doing their jobs properly if they didn't think that.
But you could forgive England fans for fearing that it will end up being the scoreline Glenn McGrath always predicts. Five to Australia. Nil to England.
Through circumstances out of their control, decisions very much in their control, and some general sloppiness, England are in the Ashes mire.
