No, I am not talking about 10 Downing Street. I am talking about the England Cricket Team. But what does it take to get rid of these people? By this point, the Captain, Coaches, Director of England Cricket and ECB Chief Executive should have been given marching orders. To say nothing of the Prime Minister.

Ashley Giles should have gone after that dreadful interview he gave a few weeks ago, in which he blamed everyone else for all the problems of the world but took credit for looking after the players mental wellbeing. I would question how much good it does them to be thrown into another Pominshambles Ashes tour. I have never seen Giles as England Management material – I thought we had given up on that a few years ago. Giles is out of his depth, yet has the job of giving the ECB a report into what has gone wrong. That will take 2 minutes…..pick the wrong players, give them zero preparation, totally overload them. Thats your written report Ashley.

Tom Harrison of course should be gone as soon as the conversation came up about that £2.1 million bonus. A failure bonus? That should have been enough on its own, but after England failed to win every Ashes since he has been in post plus failed to qualify for the T20 World Cup Final. Not to mention the Racism scandal. He seems to be untouchable.

Then we have Chris Silverwood. Things were going ok until he was given control of selection, and since then it has been a shambles. Though I think we had doubts from day 1 – Essex and England are somewhat different. But Ray Illingworth had already shown us in 1995 that you need a separate coach and selector. I guess we cannot blame Silverwood for that Giles inspired piece of stupidity (Giles again). It would be harsh to point out that England’s ‘least bad’ result came when Silverwood was absent…but he is paid for this stuff so I am going to be harsh. England did better without him in Sydney. By now he should be gone and a Selection Panel should have been created ahead of the West Indies Tour.

It is not just Silverwood though is it? Lots of the same names have been around for a long time. Graham Thorpe was one of my heros in the 90s and should be regarded as one of England’s finest middle order bats. But the England batters have failed consistently for years – pretty much since England got rid of Graham Gooch actually. Thorpe is credited with unlocking Joe Root’s run of brilliance by telling Root to be more selfish. Perhaps Thorpe is a great mentor, but he has not delivered an England batting line up. Time to say goodbye.

And we have to come to Joe Root. Sorry Joe, but it really would be best if you stepped aside out of your own choice. But if that is not happening, someone needs to make the decision for him. Keeping people in a job because nobody else can do the job is a terrible place to be. Give someone a chance and they might actually show some ability – but they won’t if not given an opportunity. Root is not cut out for Captaincy and is not getting any better at it. His batting is so important to this team, and sadly he cannot bat in Australia. But perhaps if he has not been carrying the Sunday School second 11 for years he might have  had more chance. It is time for Joe to go.

But the worst thing is that all these people seem to have backing, particularly Root and Silverwood. Vice Captain Ben Stokes backs up Root, who backs up Silverwood. Failed Wicket Keeper Jos Buttler speaks of still wanting to conquer test match cricket. Jimmy Anderson wants to keep going. Since when was it any of these people’s choice? You fail, you move aside or get moved, and then you let someone else have a go.

It speaks of an insider culture, where the likes of Stokes, Buttler and Root carry the player power. It is time to stop. It is time for a completely new team. That means a new Captain. If Stokes does not want to be Captain, it means a new Vice Captain. It means a new Wicket Keeper. It means a new batting line up (yes, yet another). It means another set of bowlers. Yes, even Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson need to retire, or be retired.

To paraphrase Teresa May…..a new start means….a new start.

The latest ‘Ashes Shambles’ is simply not acceptable, and my impression is that this time the English fans are cross. Even the Barmy Army have expressed a certain amount of frustration which in itself is quite a statement.

Let me just have a little recap of where we have got to from an England perspective. Let us initially go back a little bit to 2019:

• 2019 was been the year of the World Cup. Back then even the most diehard Test Match Fanatic was prepared permit the focus to be on One Day Cricket. Let us not forget that England fans were sick of being ‘World Cup no hopers’.
• Overall in 2019 the Test Match Team got away with it in that they held Australia to a 2-2 draw in the Ashes in England. However, it was the first time England had not beaten Australia at home since 2001, and the year also saw a loss to New Zealand and a number of sub-100 scores. It was a sign of what was to come.

However, 2020 seemed like it was a ‘bright new dawn’. Maybe hindsight is a wonderful thing, but things did seem to be on the way up.

• England beat South Africa away despite a terrible start to the test match series. In the first test match England faced an illness crisis – and it is hard not to wonder about Covid-19 given what was about to happen to the world.
• That South Africa team was not a strong team, and that is more evident now then at the time. However, it was a good series for Dom Sibley, Ollie Pope and Dom Bess. Zak Crawley showed potential, and with Rory Burns coming off a good, though lucky, 2019 we saw an England batting line up coming together.
• England beat West Indies and Pakistan at home. England have since found out how hard it is to be the touring team in Covid times, but England did play well.
• During the Home Covid Summer, the Burns / Sibley partnership worked, though both had very odd techniques. Crawley had been doubtful until be scored 267 in the last test. Jos Buttler also had enjoyed a good summer and Ben Stokes batted well (though both bowling and catching were not so good – he was perhaps understandably distracted by his father’s health).
• England seemed to have lots of bowlers available, and had a logical rest and rotation policy going where Anderson and Broad never played together.

The good form continued into 2021 and we saw evidence of a Joe Root breakthrough as he began his amazing year. England won the first three games of the year. The Sri Lanka side was hardly steller, but the conditions were not easy. The victory against India was spectacular. However, even then, we were concerned about the reliance on Root.

Since that first test match against India, it has been a disgrace. I am certain that it is no coincidence that this is when the Chairman of Selectors was scrapped. The mistakes began in India. Of particular note:

• After 3 victories, the side was changed significntly. I would ssuggest Jos Buttler has not been the same since he went home from India.
• England played 4 fast bowlers in the day night game. England tried a similar thing in 1992 and we know how well that went. But that was where the Anderson and Broad rotation policy was thrown away, and the rotation randomisation begain.

The Home Summer was so poor that I do not want to re-live it here, and so we reach the present day – the Ashes capitulation. And let us note a few things:

• This is not a great Australian team by any means. I think this makes it all the more annoying. They are a good team, but not great.
• The decision making has been incredibly bad. Amazingly so. The selection, the decisions at the toss and in the game…you could pick any number of decisions – the number of basic mistakes both before and during the tour is quite incredible.
• The decision to go into Brisbane without both of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad is as crazy as playing 4 fast bowlers in India.
• The catching is diabolical. We are at the point where if the players cannot catch they need to be dropped. Surely this has contributed to the dropping of Burns – but also his technique was always going to fail down under

But let us come to the worst aspects of all this. Firstly, Selection. Constantly it seems as if they are picking the team for the previous game. If nothing else, look what the home team does – they picked the best bowlers in the first game. Yes, they lost bowlers due injury in the second game, but being 1-0 up made up for that. Whereas England bought in the best bowlers when they were already 1-0 down. Australia also always pick a spinner, without fail.

Worst of all is the lack of progress. Yes, we can easily list endless lists of names. Players such as Dom Sibley, Rory Burns, Haseeb Hamid, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Dom Bess have regressed. The likes of Dawid Malan, Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow are treading water. Even coaches have changed over the years. It does feel a bit too cosy.

Yes, we have to direct some anger at the current coaching team. And even now, Chris Silverwood refuses to own up. He speaks of positives and says he would made the same (*STUPID*) selection decisions again. That is not only totally perplexing – it is incredibly disrespectful to the fans.

Silverwood does need to go and needs to be replaced. Joe Root also needs to step down as captain. But we need answers from higher up. Where is Ashley Giles? Where is Tom Harrison? How many Ashes do we have to loose before the ECB ‘top brass’ changes?

If I hear one more England representative talking about the positives of being 3-0 down…………………..

In 1986 it was said that England could not bat, could not bowl and could not field. Well, if Ian Botham and David Gower were tarred with that brush, how do you go about describing this lot?

Firstly, we have to ask questions of the management (and we will talk about Australia later). Can you seriously imagine Mike Gatting or Micky Stewart going up to Botham and Graeme Dilly on the 14th November 1986 in Brisbane and leaving them out? “Yes chaps, I know you are the best bowlers, but we think it would be better to throw away the first game and pick you in the second when we are already on the way to a 5-0 thrshing”.

Yet on the 8th December this year, that is exactly what Joe Root and Chris Silverwood did. Back in 2012, when Andrew Strauss’ England were top of the tree, they left out Stuart Broad and James Anderson for a test match against West Indies. It caused quite a reaction at the time. The fact is, it was a questionable decision for a top class team with an unassailable lead in the series. It is the sort of thing you can consider when you are winning. When you have lost virtually all of your games in the year, you have to pick your best players.

When it comes to selection, England are a shambles now. We are willing to cut some slack – Covid and injuries have been a nightmare combo. The loss of Jofra Archer was a cruel blow. But we also have to ask why all of England’s batters have regressed? I would list them but it would require a lot of space. Simply England pick test match batters who fail to kick on. Why, and when will someone own up? Graham Thorpe was my hero, but as a batting coach he is not having the desired impact on these players.

But even accepting all of that, Root and Silverwood are in a muddle, and they have created a situation where they have nobody else involved in team selection. The teams they are picking up are almost as mixed up as the crazy teams that Ray Illingworth chose in the mid 90s.

My view is that they are just making it too complicated. It seems like they keep picking the team that they should have picked in the team before. They are messing about with the basics. For example, you pick a spinner unless a compelling reason exists not to. Even on a dark day in Leeds (not that we can have test matches in Leeds these days) you would think twice about not picking a spinner (see England v South Africa in 2012). Pick the same spinner regularly and the captain and bowler will learn to work together and the bowler can get some match practice. But most of all…..PICK YOUR BEST PLAYERS.

We can expand the theme of not doing the basics to Rory Burns. I have always felt that Burns could not succeed down under. He probably will get the rest of the series now however badly he plays, but he does not deserve it. His technique is miles away from the coaching manual but we do not care about that. He is also miles away from common sense. I am sorry, but he is the only batter I have ever seen in international cricket who does not look at the bowler. You can stand where you want, but watching the bowler is pretty key. Staying still would help. In Brisbane he was so busy moving he missed a ball that Alistair Cook would be clipping through the leg side. We could maybe cope with that, but then Burns must be England’s least good catcher – and it is a low bar. We are at the point where we must consider just picking players who can catch, irrespective of runs and wickets.

Talking about basics, what about the No Balls. Ben Stokes and Ollie Robinson have done it. What are all these hundreds of coaches doing? Simple – in the nets, practice properly. Don’t permit no balls in practice and you know what, they will not happen in real games. Botham hardly ever bowled No Balls. Everyone wanted to blame the Umpire for not calling them. Well, that is pathetic as well – with modern technology every no ball must be called. But only 1 person makes front foot no balls happen. The bowler. Sack the bowling coach if he cannot ensure the basics of bowling legal deliveries.

So, you may gather I am not pleased. The worst thing about this Ashes tour is that it is so predicable. The result of the series is going to almost certainly be decided within 12 days of cricket. Somehow it has become normal for England to loose 5-0 in Australia. In 2006/7 it started, but that Australia team was brilliant. In 2013/4 it started to become the norm even against a pretty poor Australia. Now it is just inevitable.

People look back at the 1990s and laugh. But out of each Ashes tour someone came out with credability, and normally England won a game somewhere. In 1990/1, Gower and Mike Atherton made runs. In 1994/5, Darren Gough made himself known and Thorpe made runs, including a fine hundred in the last game. In 1998/9 England’s middle order was respectable, and Gough made the headlines again. In 2002/3 it was all about Michael Vaughan – and the fact that he conquered the Aussie bowlers must have been a factor at home in 2005.

It is time for England to show some fight. Pick the best players. Consistently. Score some hundreds – even when you loose. But most of all – SHOW SOME FIGHT.

A brief word about the Australia Management. Despite all the ‘crossing the line’ nonsense we hear from David Warner and co, despite the involvement of a Prime Minister, despite everything, we have Steve Smith, the Sandpaper Captain, back leading the team. Seriously, you telling me that this is acceptable? I am ok having him in the team. But Smith should not be Captain. Not that England can claim any moral high ground at all given everything. But no, Smith as Captain is a disgrace.

I thought I would close down my attempt to follow the 2021 English Cricket season.

To be honest, the main conclusion is that English (and Welsh) domestic cricket is hard to follow. In fact, it is chaos. So far, 2021 has been a disaster for the ECB. Of course, England still have time to turn the year round. Pigs might fly. But if I had to break down the disaster of 2021, two things stick out.

1. Rest and Randomise

Despite Rest and Rotation, Ben Stokes is out of action. The policy sounds sensible, but has been a complete disaster which should have been binned as soon as the wheels came off in India. Certainly, some of the movements in and out of the team for India were completely mad.

But the main problem is the injury list. It is endless, but to give a few examples:

• Jofra Archer has hardly played since India and will miss The Ashes
• Stuart Broad has not played since the New Zealand series and was rotated beforehand
• Ben Stokes is taking an indefinite break, despite having only played 3 One Day Internationals for England since India
• Ben Foakes, England’s most unlucky player bar Jack Leach, has been injured all summer
• Jos Buttler has suffered injury
• James Anderson, England’s best and oldest bowler has bowled endlessly this summer…and has hardly been rested at all

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Now New Zealand did mange to do ‘Rest and Rotation’ for the second test match of the summer. But largely they pick a consistent team.

For Engand, players are missing games and then getting injured when they play. Rest and rotation seems to have created more injuries than it prevented. How can a team become used to playing together when the players never actually play together? Actually, the only answer is to play less cricket.

The other point is that the the public do not get to see the best players. People have said that ‘England could have found 15 players to tour Pakistan’. Well, I am not so sure about that given what is going on in neighbouring Afghanistan, but that is another matter – though one worth considering before you judge the players. But my point is that I do not want to watch ’15 players that England found somewhere’. I want to watch the best players. In 2021 I have hardly seen some them.

2. The best domestic One Day Cricket of 2021 was T20 Finals Day

It must surely be a difficulty for The ECB that the best One Day Cricket I have seen, domestically, this year was not The Hundred. I thought The Hundred was really good, but the best games I have seen were the 3 that took place on Finals Day.

It does give County Cricket the best fighting chance of survival though. I have limited sympathy for the Counties, and I do not really subscribe to the idea that they have been trampled all over by the ECB. Or that County Cricket is a good enough standard (it isn’t). It is outdated and confusing and hard to follow. I believe the Counties need to catch up with life and get into the 21st century.

The best way for the counties to survive is to ensure high quality cricket. That will stop The Hundred in its tracks. Even in this crazy year of 2021 the counties came up with the goods on finals day. It can be done even without the ECBs help. Focus on this and stop moaning about how badly treated the counties are.

Looking back

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Let us briefly look back. England started the year on a high. They won both home series in 2020 and the ECB deserved a lot of credit (and still does) for saving the international fixture list. Yes, you can be critical of England for cancelling tours and not ‘repaying’ the favour, but in 2020 we faced the real possibility of not having any international cricket from April onwards.

The high continued when England were victorious in the first 3 outings of the year, which were all difficult assignments – though it was pretty much down to Joe Root, who has been a one man team all year. And then, in long format cricket anyway, it all came crashing down. England played a second string team against New Zealand that was not full strength either and escaped with a 1-0 series loss. It should have been 2-0 and those that said England should have taken on the chase at Lords were living in ‘cloud cuckoo land’. New Zealand showed themselves to be a classy team, the best team in the world, and the best test match cricket I have been all summer came from the Kiwis.

Throw away England

Eventually, the second England India series of the year started. England worked extremely hard to chuck away a game at Lords thanks to an hour of stupidity. Genuinely, it was lame cricket, which came after being saved by rain at Trent Bridge. India were ok at the Oval, and despite a nightmare in Leeds would probably have won at Old Trafford if they could have been bothered to turn up. I was disappointed by the India series.

England worked extremely hard to chuck away a game at Lords thanks to an hour of stupidity.  Genuinely, it was lame cricket

Short Form Success – but muddled T20 thinking?

In the middle of all this, England were having a good short format summer, though the 2019 World Cup Team is now a thing of history. That England were easily able to beat Pakistan in the 50 over games showed England’s One Day depth – this was genuinely a ‘C for Covid’ team due to an outbreak. Those 3 games have proved costly though; they must surely have impacted Ben Stokes wellbeing, and shortly afterwards he announced his ‘break’ from cricket.

And we still have no idea what the team will be for the World T20. England still have too many openers and not enough middle order specialists. One such specialist is Jos Buttler, who is opening and that means, assuming Jason Roy plays, that Jonny Bairstow bats at 4. This is the same Bairstow who could be considered England’s best One Day opener ever. I just don’t understand why Bairstow opening is not the first ‘inked in’ name and position.

For now, we will not discuss the fact that England no longer has a Chairman of Selectors. But I think we can agree that Ed Smith did not do such a bad job, compared to what we have had since. Chris Silverwood needs to accept some help and not repeat the mistakes of the 90s Illingworth era.

The None Games

The biggest talking point of the season has to be the games that did not happen, both in England and in Pakistan. Despite positive noises this week, The Ashes remains in the balance. I am prepared to cut the boards and players some slack when it comes to travelling and touring at the moment. It is not easy.

I think the Pakistan situation is more challenging than is generally stated, but it was poorly handled by the ECB. It seemed to be the end for Ian Whatmore.

The problem has been bubbling for years. The players have too much cricket to play. It does seem to me that the same voices who moan about the overloaded fixture list are the ones who moan when games get called off. You cannot have it both ways.

Perhaps 2021 is that typing point. It is time to cancel everything and start again – domestically and internationally. It won’t happen though.

The second test match featured on hour or so of the worst test match cricket I have seen from England since the Adelaide test match in 2006. That game in 2006 was also a game that was almost impossible to loose…

A lot of the pundits say this it was a great test match. I am biased of course, but I am not sure you can call it a great test match when the result is decided by basic errors – and boy did we see some basic errors on Monday morning from the England bowlers and the Captain. Joe Root has chosen to heap the blame upon himself – credit to him for that – and he did get it very wrong. But he should not take all the blame. The wider team should have enough collective knowledge and experience to realise that bowling at the stumps is the way to get batters out. They should have enough self control not to become so angry about what happened on Day 2.

I have to admit to being highly concerned by the words of Michael Vaughan on the BBC. He said that ‘he knew England expected to win’ before day 5 started. Well I would suggest that when you have failed to win the last 6 games you have played, ‘expecting’ to win is extremely arrogant. If Vaughan is right England deserved to lose.

What can England do before the next game? They have to do something if they are to avoid defeat in the next 8 scheduled games (against India and Australia – and the West Indies will be optimistic about the series in in 2022).

My only suggestion is that they take a look at the England team who faced South Africa in 1998. After the first 2 games England were 1-0 down. They had played well in the first game at Edgebaston, but the second game at Lords featured some poor cricket. Somewhat questionably, England fast bowler Dean Headley decided to attack South African pace supremo Allan Donald with some bouncers in the first innings – and the England batters suffered later at Donald’s hands. Things got worse before they got better, as England batted badly at Old Trafford but they dragged it back by holding out for a gritty draw and when on to win the series. From somewhere, they found a degree of determination. They went on to compete well in the Ashes away which was closer than the scores suggested.

In that period around 1998, we saw that the difference between being a good side and a terrible side was not that great. England see-sawed from the bad (against South Africa) to the good (against South Africa and Australia) to the very, very, very bad against New Zealand in 1999. In 2000 they won 4 consecutive series. It was pretty much the same set of players that did all that (Atherton, Stewart, Hussain, Thorpe, Gough and Caddick were in the midst) but in 1998 and 2000 they found just that little bit more. The same sort of thing happened to Australia in 2013. Australia were a rabble when they arrived in England. By the time England left Australia in 2014, we knew who was boss, and the 2010/11 England side was forever broken. The Australian players had not changed that much, but by the end of the 2013 Ashes in England the team was settled with clear roles for key players.

So it is not all about personnel but it is about attitude. That being said, England have to drop some of this team that played so badly against India. Firstly they have to show some faith in the players who have had success in first class cricket. Secondly, they have to show that the England team is not above criticism and is prepared to make changes. But thirdly, the players they do pick have to show that they have something about them – in the way Ollie Robbinson has done. England moved away from aggressive test match cricket in 2019 and it seemed to make sense. But they had more luck with aggression, even if it was up and down. This attempt to replicate the 2011 England team with big first innings runs is just not working. So I would go back to that Trevor Bayliss approach with all the lows it brings.

So what changes would I make?

Personally I would drop both openers. Surely the case of Dom Sibley is clear, he has to go. Rory Burns has made runs, but consistently fails when most needed – Monday being an example. I am also fed up with watching stupid techniques – I cannot see Burns being successful at down under while he is looking at mid wicket when the bowler runs in. So I would drop both of them – but I suspect England will persist with Burns.

Haseeb Hameed is an opener so perhaps he should open the batting for England if he is going to play? How about playing players in roles they are used to? He must be given some time to succeed. So we need to look to county cricket for 3 batters to bring in. One of these will be Dawid Malan, either opening or at 3. Whilst it is tempting to say that nobody else good enough is available, a look at the first class batting averages for 2021 shows a number of players who have an average of 40 or more. The likes of Alex Lees, Alex Davies, Lewis Gregory, Tom Abell, Jake Libby. Or England could reconsider James Vince, Tom Westley or Adam Lyth, all of who looked more like test batters last time out than Burns and Sibley do now. Even Liam Livingstone has to be an option as he is clearly in the form of his life. England do actually have options, and a look at the current top 3 shows the bar is set pretty low right now.

Next we have to consider the place of Jos Buttler. Once again, we have a player who, before the stupidity of rest and rotation, was settling in to his role in the team, but now is struggling for his place. My view is that Buttler struggles unless he has a very clear role. Batting at 7 he does not know how much to ‘be a proper player’ or ‘throw the bat’ and he ends up doing neither. Jonny Bairstow on the other hand has shown the ability to be destructive at 7 where he has a good record, before he was messed around and asked to bat in every place in the team! It seems to me that Buttler has done better than Bairstow in the top 6, and Bairstow better than Buttler at number 7. Perhaps it is not what we expected or wanted from Buttler, but surely the solution is to put the players where they have had success. Bairstow gets the gloves, bats at 7 and gets until the end of the Ashes. If he fails, that is the end of his test match career. Buttler goes back to 6 and is given a clear role as a top order player. He only gets until the end of the India series to show his ability, or else he also is finished (by the way, Buttler does not become next wicket keeper in the list – Ben Foakes is next in line and then the esteemed BBC Foreign Corespondant and wicket keeper John Simpson must be worthy of consideration).

When it comes to the bowling, I would not have picked Moeen Ali at Lords but now he has been picked he has done enough to keep his place and England need to give him a good run now – again until the end of The Ashes. He goes in at 8 where he has had success before. Jimmy Anderson, Mark Wood (if fit) and Ollie Robinson play, but Sam Curran has not done enough. If Chris Woakes is fit he plays, otherwise Craig Overton plays. Saqib Mahmood and Brydon Carse must be close as cover for Mark Wood.

Whoever they pick, the England Management must commit to the players, back them but crucially give them clear roles. Make sure they know what they have to do to stay in the team. We also need to scrap this constant conversation about ‘big first innings runs’. England just do not have the players. Lets instead take a more attacking approach. It will not always work – but the current arrangement is not exactly a success either.

My team:

Hameed, Davies, Malan, Root, Vince, Buttler, Bairstow+, Ali, Robinson, Wood, Anderson