Smaller ECB panel puts greater onus on the head coach Trevor Bayliss to have a significant input into England’s fortunes in all versions of the gameTraditionally after an emphatic Ashes defeat the captain or the coach is jettisoned. But this time the response from the England and Wales Cricket Board has been more measured and decorous than usual. Two months after the defeat in Sydney Andrew Strauss has announced a modest shake-up of England’s selection process.There are obvious reasons why Joe Root and Trevor Bayliss have survived a 4-0 defeat in Australia. Root is a young captain, still coming to the terms with the job. He could be an excellent leader provided he remembers that his prime function is to...
Joe Root and Trevor Bayliss safe despite Ashes humbling but selectors’ emphasis on character over record and a reluctance to shuffle the pack needs scrutinyIt has been gruelling for England’s players but they should not forget this Ashes tour in a hurry. Every humiliation, every defeat should be stored away.Remember it well: the preposterous head-butt, the missed opportunities such as Australia’s 209 for seven becoming 328 all out in Brisbane and England’s 368 for four becoming 403 all out in Perth, Steve Smith batting, the Marsh brothers reuniting, the bouncer barrage at the tail, Smith batting, left-handers groping against Nathan Lyon, the hashtag “Beat England” everywhere and repeated on our screens by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull one moment, Usain Bolt, even...
Australia’s captain is fully aware of his role as the main character in every story these sides write, but the next move in the third Test is down to Joe RootThe roar Joe Root let out when he reviewed correctly to dismiss Cameron Bancroft shortly after David Warner nicked off was guttural and instructive. The England captain had got the big call right and they had two in a hurry. After a horrid collapse before lunch, and an imposing start for Australia, England were suddenly back in the day, with Craig Overton looking more dangerous by the delivery.But the upshot of the hours to come was always going to rest on how they went when the next guy walked out,...
Joe Root’s side must contend with England’s dreadful history at the Waca in next week’s third Test – it is hard to imagine them letting in the wind of changeAll this talk of 5-0 is not very helpful. But it is understandable. In two of the past three Ashes tours England have been whitewashed. Once the Aussie juggernaut is on a roll there can be no stopping it, especially since the refuge of a draw has just about disappeared from Test cricket.It now behoves England to forget about the long campaign. Every match must be viewed as their last chance so any thoughts about Melbourne and Sydney must be banished. Somehow, they must find a way to win in Perth...
England are going to be casting for Ashes roles during their warm-up matches, which is a little close to opening night to be running auditions, but there is a simple solutionSir Gubby Allen was not, in the delicate phrase of one of his biographers, a “naturally penitent man”. Allen, England captain and MCC president, was also the chair of selectors between 1955 and 1962. It was Allen who persuaded Peter May to recall Cyril Washbrook to play against Australia at Headingley in 1956. Washbrook was 41, and hadn’t played a Test in so long that he was serving as one of the selectors himself. “The press went to town,” Allen wrote, but Washbrook made 98, and England won. As Allen...