Ashes 2025-26.

[backfootpunch]

I feel like if youd asked 1000 english cricket fans who should be the spinning all rounder in the ashes squad 0 of them wouldve said will jacks

It wouldve been completely split between liam dawson and rehan ahmed. Or just said pick jack leach he's our best spinner.

It is one of the strangest pieces of selection i have ever seen.

Then throw in the following

No fielding coach
Let the bowling coach miss the tour
Played a warm up game against themselves
Didnt play in the pink ball warm up game
Didnt pick a reserve keeper
Didnt pick a reserve opener
The reserve batsmen has 0 first class hundreds
Didnt pick potts until the 5th test and chucked him the new ball
Continued to open with carse despite him spraying the new ball every innings
Spent the first 3 tests playing big drives at back of a length balls
Dropped a load of catches

Did i miss anything?

The thing that makes it frustrsting is this aussie team is really not that good. They are missing 3 of their first choice bowlers and are carrying half the batting line up.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I expect England see themselves as going in with a four man pace attack and no spinner. Jacks is there to hurry on the over rate a bit. Though we might wonder if Root could do that job.

I can understand England not wanting to play a proper spinner, though I think it stems from a negative, defeatist mentality. But their choice of a bits and pieces option with scarcely any pedigree amounts to no more than an optimistic punt.


They would have lost anyway- despite this hardly being a great Aussie side. But they might certainly have lost better.

Still, mustn't overlook the unexpected win.

[sussexpob]

I can understand England not wanting to play a proper spinner, though I think it stems from a negative, defeatist mentality. But their choice of a bits and pieces option with scarcely any pedigree amounts to no more than an optimistic punt

We already know from the series vs India, that the England selectors must have rated Jacks at least their fourth best option as late as the last game before this tour, because they picked Bashir, Dawson and then Bethell in the current Jacks role during that series to fulfil the spin requirements. Now, it seems that at some stage after Bashir's finger ended sideways, that Jacks and Bethell overtook him in the pecking order - which begs the question of why they even bothered to pick him for the tour and waste a spot on him? If he wasn't going to play in the 43 degree heat of Adelaide, he was not going to play at all.... which has came to pass in actuality.

[sussexpob]

I think the details here are important to, as it really does show where the management really pay so little attention to what they are doing. England arrived in Australia saying Bashir was number 1, and the squad reflected that. The reality in how this has panned out is, we know they had already lost faith in this selection, we know that they arrived not really knowing who to pick and having an issue to solve.

In the first day of the Lions v First XI game, the only warm up prepared, and a game in which people changed sides at will to maximise the usefulness of the preparation, Joe Root ended up bowling 15 overs to a Lions team including 4 potential spin options, all of which batted that day. This to me is utterly crazy, decisions need to me made before the first test, wasting 15 precious overs of spin on a part-timer was just idiotic. The spinners you intend to play should have been bowling those overs.

Rehan Ahmed then scored 90 vs the First team and was withdrawn from the game without bowling. When the First team came to bat, no spin option was used until the 6th bowling option was utilised. Jacks then came on at 7, and Bethell bowled 5 overs at the tail as the 9th bowler used. England handed the ball to 5 seamers, only 2 of those players had any sort of chance of playing a part in the series. Why then, did we waste time having the B team's 6th best bowler get the ball when spots in the first team were up for grabs and yet decided?

Bashir then changed sides, and 3 spinners in the Lions side who did not bat were not handed the ball. Jacks did not switch sides to get more bowling and neither did Bethell. And then in the 4th innings the Lions subbed in their 7th seamer of the game and a kid with virtually no experience in FC (and average of over 50 a wicket with zero chance of playing in the test series) to bowl before spin was introduced. Hartley came on as 7th option to send down 4 overs. Jacks as 5th bowler picked up Brook who, as the press reported, seemed entirely disinterested with the exercise and was practicing experimental shots.

We then get to the CAXI game. Hartley was handed the ball first change, got out Josh Inglis with the last ball of his first over, and was removed from the attack for the rest of the innings. Josh Inglis was the only current test player England played. The decision is just weird... comes on after the new ball, gets rid of the best batter in the game, doesn't bowl again despite the fact we now know after the first test England have an issue with picking the spinner they brought. The Lions used 10 bowlers in the innings.... Bethell and Jacks again came on 6/7. Jacks ended up bowling 16 overs, Bethall 10.... they combined for 1 tailender wicket. Why put on Hartley first change if you wanted the other two bowling? It just does not make sense at all. Worth noting also that Will Jacks was subbed out the batting line up. We are days away from his test recall, and you decide its not worth sending him out to get balls under his belt, but you bowl him in the same game? In the second innings, Jacks came on to bowl just 3 overs at 5. Harltey came in at 7, Bethell did not bowl. Lions used 8 bowlers, including Kellaway's part time spin. Hartley once again took a wicket first over, but only bowled 7 overs total in an innings England conceeded 250-2.

In the 2 day game that followed, Tom Haines inexplicably bowled more/before any of the three spinners that were chosen to play. Hartley once again came on and removed the oppositions best player and returned decent figures. Bethell and Kellaway did not take a wicket. Then in the official A match vs nations, Hartley was dropped. England once again fielded 8 bowlers, but ended up handing the ball to 55 overs of spin, 30 of which was bowled by batsman.

-All in all, England's statistically best averaging test spinner out of both sides (Hartley) bowled 25 total overs in 4 games on the Lions tour.... he took 4/120 at 30 each
-Will Jacks in 3 games, bowled 39 overs .... 5/213.... 42 each
-Bethell in 4 games bowled 32 overs.... 5/118.... 23,60 each
- Rehan Ahmed scored 90 in his only innings and did not bowl ... he then was withdrawn from the squad to play BBL
- Kellaway bowled 29 overs .... he returned 0/141
- Bashir returned 4/417 in two games....104 each

All in all, Will Jacks in 7 games on this tour has bowled only 97 overs..... an utter waste of a spot.

[Gingerfinch]

Gotta feel a bit for Stokes. The England team is on paper at least, pretty average, when the likes of Archer and Wood are missing. A pretty poor top three, decent keeper bat and no good spinner, although playing one that can bat a bit does irk me and the pace attack looks no better than a decent county attack!
With Root and Stokes being the only world class players in the team, with the latter being injury prone, he really doesn't have many tools to play with.

[sussexpob]

I just wonder at what point in the process did Jacks stick out? He has taken 22 FC wickets since Stokes and McCullum took over the team in 28 innings he played in, he hardly bowls at all, and in the last two years he played 17 percent of available matches in the CC.

In ODI internationals recently he has a staggering 2/242 in the last two years, with an econ rate significantly over the worst career rate ever recorded.
In T20Is, he has only bowled 8 overs in nearly 30 games, and only bowled more than one over in a game once. Since the experiment in the last world cup where he opened the bowling to Australia and was promptly carted for 25 runs, he has bowled 5 overs in 15 games.

So, at some stage around the end of the summer despite the fact his ODI is an all time disaster, despite the fact that he basically doesn't bowl in T20 cricket, despite the fact he barely plays in FC and when he does he takes no wickets, a decision was made after he went at 7 an over in a warm up game that he was the best option we had.

In the end it comes down to the same thing again... preparation. I don't think England prepared for Bashir to bowl so horribly in the warm ups and didn't account for it. When he did, they decided to put Jacks in because the failing Ollie Pope, who has been on deaths door for an age, was already slotted to be replaced by Bethell. It's the only thing that makes sense, because if they didn't consider Bethell as unlikely to play in Pope's place, then one has to ask why Bethell wasn't in for Jacks? He had that role at the Oval, they keep telling us his a legendary bat in the making so must be considered a better option than Jacks.

[sussexpob]

Gotta feel a bit for Stokes. The England team is on paper at least, pretty average, when the likes of Archer and Wood are missing. A pretty poor top three, decent keeper bat and no good spinner, although playing one that can bat a bit does irk me and the pace attack looks no better than a decent county attack!
With Root and Stokes being the only world class players in the team, with the latter being injury prone, he really doesn't have many tools to play with.

Stokes is part of the selection committee that picks the team, and on tour that then thins to him and McCullum choosing who plays in games, so he is accountable for the team he has ended with as much as anyone.

I think this is where the defence of Stokes as a brilliant leader become somewhat fantasy. It's not Stokes fault that he's ended up with a spinner he can't bowl in a game? Well, even ignoring the fact that he is in fact part of the decision making process that leads to that happening, even assuming he is not, do you think a great leader would allow his coach or selector to pick a player he has almost no intention of giving the ball to during the game?? Because that is the reality in this game.... Australia are on their way to 600 all out, and Jacks has bowled 8 overs all game, with another part-time option bowling considerably more. A great leader would not allow that to happen, and would tell his coach if he sent him lousy weaponry, he won't use it. A weak leader ends up throwing the ball at him when the game is already lost having no faith it will do anything, but having no other choice with the game drifting away.

It seems people want to have it both ways. Stokes is an inspirational, outspoken, charismatic leader who makes people listen.... he just doesn't win because he stands idly by while watching everyone else bugger up.

[Durhamfootman]

to prepare or not to prepare, that is the question

Rob Key himself said after the ashes were lost that the prep was a cock up, despite also saying previously that everything they had done had been done with this ashes series in mind. He has also said continually that this team and this approach should be judged after the ashes. Well, this is it and it hasn't gone well. Everything that they could have done wrong, they pretty much did.

They need to reflect on this now, because if they wait a bit to decide how best to avoid a similar lack of suitable preparation for the next ashes series down under it'll already be too late. They need to be baking into the future test programme now, right now, a test match series in the southern hemisphere for Oct/Nov 2029 if they want to avoid the same problems over how to get ready for the first ashes test in 4 years time.

I don't see how Key survives, he's behind a lot of this stuff and presumably he's the one who persuaded the board to sign it all off. I'd like to see McC following him out of the door, but Dobell reckons the ECB won't make that particular call until after the T20 WC in Feb. Presumably if that goes as badly as the Champs Trophy did, then he'll be shown the exit. If England do really, really well, then perhaps he survives until after the next home ashes series, but everything just feels root and twig *modded* up atm.

[mikesiva]

England burn an early review on Neser.

How can any captain justify wasting two reviews on a nightwatchman?

[Durhamfootman]

desperation?

and looking at the wrong things. For their last remaining review, they appeared to have been so convinced that the ball hit Neser's boot and not bat, that they forgot to wonder whether the umpire had spotted something else..... like, it did hit the boot, but the impact was outside the line of off

[sussexpob]

Rob Key himself said after the ashes were lost that the prep was a cock up, despite also saying previously that everything they had done had been done with this ashes series in mind. He has also said continually that this team and this approach should be judged after the ashes. Well, this is it and it hasn't gone well. Everything that they could have done wrong, they pretty much did..... I don't see how Key survives, he's behind a lot of this stuff and presumably he's the one who persuaded the board to sign it all off

Project management/planning/delivery is a large part of what I do professionally, and when I look at Rob Key I see a man who at the best is very inexperienced in what he is doing, and at the worst is just totally incompetent. Its a job that is detail orientated - on Day 1 he should have sat down and thought about what he wanted to achieve. He should have then thought about every single minute detail of how that can be achieved, and then put in place a plan for all of those factors to be achieved. Only a fool who doesn't know what they are doing leaves management of anything down to arbitrary decision making based on their own weird ideas, or without clear defined guidelines of what success or failure is. Data? Let's just ignore that, I think you need to bowl 95mph to win in Australia, and 150 years of data that proves me wrong can go do one.

A sensible person sets in place a system that produces data that helps you to make informed decisions on reality. At any given time, you should know exactly how your team are performing to expectations. You should know if a batter averages under a certain level for a set amount of games, they should be dropped. The same should be in place for the players you bring in. At any given moment at all times, you should have a 100% clear picture of every single player playing professionally and what exactly then need to do to play for England. This data should be available on a live basis, available at the click of a button.

Really, that can be no worse example of a disastrously implemented and executed project than the Kookaburra test. You created a test to measure performance in a particular environment, but this environment was not replicated in full. This rendered any data that came from the test null and void, and secondary to this, made the data null and void for any other generic assessments. And then you did not put the most likely players you thought would succeed in the test actually in it. The end result was a huge tranche of the county season was ruined, the results and performance of players became utterly meaningless, and you then went and picked a load of pre-determined players that did not take part in the test based on personal ideas you already had. Not a single person involved ended up playing in Australia in a test.

I can tell you now, if you did that in any other professional business environment, you would be sacked on the spot....

[sussexpob]

Just as an example, take Union SG. We lost 17 players out of a squad of about 22 adult professionals last season and still won the league against teams with vastly higher budgets, cutting a huge net profit at the same time. You might ask how someone can essentially replace a whole squad in a few weeks with less money than they received, and still win a league given 10% of the budget of the team who finished second?

Well, its because every single player in every position in the squad has a list of at least 10 players that can replace their exact role in the squad. Each of those ten players has been scouted a minimum of one year, and when I say scouted, I mean every single conceivable possible detail has been researched, from data analytics on their performance broken down across all conceivable metrics, to detailed character references. Former teachers, coaches, the person who led their scout troop when they were 8, friends, family. By the end of one year, you know this person more than they know themselves, and anyone with red flags is put in the bin.

The second a player is sold, the club of the first few players on that list are contacted and an offer made. In some cases the replacement player is confirmed before EOB on the same day. People who put successful structures in place do not have to take time to make decisions, because those decisions are made over 12-18 months before you need to make them.

This is how to run sporting projects, and not turning up for your most important moment of your career unsure of how is actually going to play or what players in your squad are actually there for. Or having your high level feeder teams preparing people at the last stage of the pathway before elite level being filled with people with hardly any worthwhile or successful experience.

[Durhamfootman]

I can tell you now, if you did that in any other professional business environment, you would be sacked on the spot....

particularly since Rob Key as a SKY pundit called for the heads of everyone 4 years ago after the last ashes debacle. I think he used words like 'unforgiveable' when talking about prep.... and this was the covid ashes series with players isolated in rooms for months on end and most of the world on hold waiting to see what the virus did next.

This is much worse, I think. He's presided over the England team during a period of normality rather than flux, set the parameters by which he wanted England to be judged and squandered everything he had at his disposal by not having a clue what he was doing..... which is probably unsurprising given that he's never done this stuff before.

Did he appoint McCullum, I can't remember.... I think he did. Well McCullum has never managed anything either, so It's like the blind leading the blind after spending 3 or 4 years telling the people who could see, that what they were seeing was wrong. What others saw was the erosion of the basic standards that turn good cricketers into good teams.
They got rid of fielding coaches and fielding exercises, resulting in about 20 dropped catches and missed run out opportunities (not bad, given that the series has lasted 15 days and England have batted for 6 or 7 of them.... so 2 or 3 every day they've been in the field).
They changed bowling coaches continually and went into their defining series with a bowling coach who'd been in place for a handful of weeks, then worked to plans that involved perpetually bowling too short. When they pitched it up a bit more, they won the test they did it, before immediately reverting back to type.
They wanted to play a warm up match at the WACA, but left it too late to book the venue. They did plan for the day/night test by organising a warm up match before it, but then didn't send any of their first team to play in it...... it just goes on and on.... I'm not even going to get into the whole Foakes/Leach debacle where their best specialist keeper and best specialist spinner got pushed out altogether because they didn't bat aggressively enough or turn the ball 20 feet, and after discarding everyone else, ended up instead with a batter wearing gloves who didn't score runs, but could fluff chances and a batter/part time offie who didn't score runs and could barely be trusted with the ball. I'm not going to mention it because they've been doing this for years and years

I appreciate that in the age of global franchise T20 opportunities a way has to be found that makes test cricket both fun and well paid, but ignoring the boring drills, and building a group of like minded individuals in a fun environment with no accountability seems to be taking it too far. How much fun can it be to lose every day, having the supporters of a rival nation laughing their c0cks off at you every day and knowing that once you get home and the player outside noise insulation bubble force field has been turned off that you're going to get absolute pelters thrown at you. It might be that far from stopping players wandering away to do the global T20 stuff, it might actually end up pointing them firmly in the direction of the franchise emergency exit

[Durhamfootman]

and, of course, Australia allowed their squad bowlers to play 2 or 3 Shield matches ahead of the series, so when their front line bowlers were not able to play, they had replacements already in the squad with overs under their belts. If this was an England ashes series there is no way England would have allowed their squad bowlers to play more than a token one game, with loads of limits and restrictions imposed, in case they got injured, which is why the recent home ashes scenario is go 2-0 down immediately and then spend the rest of the series working really hard just to try and salvage a draw.

We've all seen what happens when bowlers aren't allowed to bowl... when they turn out for England they either bowl utter sh1te for a while or break down in the first test. It happens over and over again

[Arthur Crabtree]

England have a couple of August Tests (v Pakistan) next summer, which isn't always the case.

But next it's NZ at Lord's. It'll be nice to be back in the comfort zone. Crawley is due a score...