England will not change until this arrogant regime is dismissed |
England’s three wise men turned out to be the Three Stooges. Brendon McCullum, Rob Key and Ben Stokes sold a lie for three years.
McCullum and Key said they had been planning for the Ashes all that time but this was a slapstick tour riddled with mistakes and they deserved to lose 4-1.
McCullum’s philosophy is, “Do your own thing. Play without a care in the world. Express yourselves and if you get out, no problem, it’s not your fault”. Nobody tells them off, no accountability, and nobody gets dropped so they just keep doing the same daft things.
Why should the players change, adapt or improve if the coach and captain are OK with it? People are now getting fed up with this way of playing and if Key keeps backing McCullum to allow the players to continue making the same mistakes then his job may be on the line.
This sort of free licence to do whatever you please with no consequence is holding England back. We have some very talented cricketers, but that skill is not being harnessed. We need a different discipline and structure to the way the players prepare and think to get to the next level.
The three wise men kept telling anyone who would listen that they knew the importance of winning the Ashes in Australia.
Three Stooges: Rob Key, Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes.Credit: Getty Images
Stokes said they would not be afraid and would play their normal attacking cricket. They were insistent they did not need any competitive warm-up matches before the first Test.
All the ex-players who had won Test matches and Ashes series in Australia tried to tell them they were wrong and needed competitive practice matches for the bowlers to get overs in their legs and find the most effective lengths to bowl on Aussie pitches. The batsmen needed to score runs in the middle to boost their confidence and get used to the extra pace and bounce on very hard surfaces.
But no, the three wise men knew better even though none of them had won a Test series in Australia and our captain embarrassed himself and disrespected ex-players by telling the world that those old ex players were “has-beens”.
In other words, they had nothing to learn, were not going to change or listen to anyone outside of the squad because they knew best.
Ben Stokes looks on as Australia celebrate.Credit: Getty Images
Once it dawned on Ben how rude his comments were he made it worse by trying to say it was a slip of the tongue instead of just giving a simple apology.
After a chastened England lost the first three Tests and the Ashes in only 11 days, the three wise men were under pressure to keep their jobs. Brendon says they are going to learn some lessons and Key backs Brendon.
Of course they don’t want to lose........