Have you heard the one about the Englishman, the Irishman and the Zimbabwean?
England’s performance at Sydney – the worse performance of the worst tour of all time – gave Australians a feast of belly laughs.
It was a spineless, incompetent, shambles. A joke. Not even the bookmakers could have predicted quite how easy it was for Australia.
It was just as bad as England’s recent practice sessions – in which Jonny Bairstow dropped everything that came his way and the players hardly looked each other in the eye.
Jarod Kimber’s amusing piece on cricinfo describes the body language of the squad as Andy Flower gave them a final debrief. It went on for ages and nobody seemed to be listening.
I imagine it was just like Mickey Arthur addressing the Australian team eight months ago. Nobody wants to listen to the old same voice rambling on again.
Although there are things I don’t like about Australian cricket, there’s one thing I find admirable: they simply don’t tolerate failure. Once results started going belly-up, they sent Arthur packing (whether he thought it was fair or not).
The ECB, on the other hand, are quite happy to send out the message that catastrophic failure – a defeat described by Paul Hayward in the Telegraph as “the most spectacular implosion in the modern history of English sport” – is perfectly fine.
Don’t worry Mr Flower and Mr Cook. Your jobs are safe. We won’t even wait until after our review or post-mortem. We’re going to dress you up in a soft fluffy jumper and cuddle you all the way back to Heathrow.
It makes me despair.
The ECB’s argument is that one series doesn’t make Cook and Flower the wrong men to lead England. They’re right. One series, after a long spell of success, probably shouldn’t lead to mass firings.
But it’s not one failure, is it. Let’s look at England’s result since we became number one in the world in 2011.
Pakistan in the UAE. Lost 0-3. A total disaster.
Sri Lanka away. Drew 1-1. Sri Lanka were going through a lean spell at the time and England were fancied to beat them. We didn’t.
West Indies at home. Won 2-0. We were expected to win against a poor side and we did. But big runs from the likes of Ramdin, Sammy and Tino Best left egg on our faces.
South Africa home. Lost 0-2. We were beaten comprehensively.
India away. Won 2-1. The best result we’ve had for years. Wow. Well played!
New Zealand away. Drew 0-0. Had it not been for Prior’s heroics in the 3rd test, we would’ve lost this series. We were big favourites but narrowly avoided embarrassment.
New Zealand at home. Won 2-0. We won but didn’t play well. The batsmen failed to make big totals and were rescued by Broad’s solo effort at Lord’s.
The Ashes at home. Won 3-0. Australia arrived in a mess, but we made hard work of beating them. Even our players admitted we hadn’t played well. Plus we were lucky with the weather at both Old Trafford and The Oval.
The Ashes away. Lost 0-5. What was the one about Englishman, the Irishman and the Zimbabwean again?
The ECB would have us believe that this Ashes series was an aberration. It wasn’t. The victory in India was the aberration. In the words of Andy Flower, we should have seen this Ashes cataclysm coming (it’s the one thing our coach has actually admitted culpability for).
Since England became the world’s number one team, we’ve won 10 tests and lost 12. The victories have come against the weaker sides in world cricket.
Against the better teams, we’ve been whitewashed (or nil-ed) three times in the space of two years. Yet we’re supposed to be one of the world’s best sides.
Personally, I think this is a poor record. But I must be wrong, because David “what does he do again?” Collier says so. The fact the team hasn’t scored over 400 in twenty five innings is obvious irrelevant.
Where many of us see long-term decline, the ECB see reasons for continuity: “carry on Andy and Alastair; you’re good eggs – both of you”.
So where do England go from here? In his post-match interview, in which he talked around the questions without actually answering them, Flower said it felt like the end of an era. The talk is of building a new young team to freshen things up.
Well, I suppose if we’re not going to change coaches or captain, changing players is the only option. Convenient that.
What’s more, Graham Gooch has told us to expect more misery before we get better. Sounds like he’s buying himself even more time to fail miserably without being held accountable.
The flaw in England’s plan, of course, is that there are no good young players coming through. Ok, there are a couple, but it’s hardly a golden generation. And according to Michael Vaughan, our young players are scared of Flower anyway.
So basically, England’s strategy is to discard proven performers, replace them with youngsters that aren’t good enough, and get a coach who isn’t very good at coaching young players to coach them. Hmmmm.
The thing I find most bizarre is that the likely answer to England’s woes is staring them in the face.
A few months ago, after their whitewash in India, Australia were in exactly the same position we’re in now. They didn’t panic and drop their senior players because they realised that the current players were the best available.
What they did is fire the coach instead – and find different ways to improve and motivate the same players. I think we can safely say it’s worked pretty well.
The difference between the shoddy, somewhat unprofessional, fractious and under-performing Australian team of eight months ago is Darren Lehmann.
I could broaden this point further. What’s the difference between Manchester United’s title winning team in 2012 and this season’s motley crew? It’s Alex Ferguson (or should that be David Moyes?)
When a team has underperformed over a period of time, you can either find eleven new players or a couple of new coaches. International cricket is not like club football. You can’t buy players. What you can do, however, is get your cheque book out and hire a new coaching team. It’s a no-brainer, right?!
All England fans beleive that changes need to made. Some think senior players should be dropped; others the management and / or the captain should go.
I’d like to ask those who belong to the first group which players they’d like to chuck out:
Pietersen? Bell? They’re our best batsmen. Anderson? I don’t think so. Prior? He’s five years younger than Haddin.
See the problem? If you want the England team to change, the lack of quality youngsters available means that changing the coaches, or captain, is the only available option.
Of course, there might be some people out there who think that Flower himself can change. Well, I suppose it’s possible but I won’t hold my breath.
Sticking to his guns in the face of criticism is part of who Andy Flower is. It’s probably why he seems determined to keep his job – whether we like it or not.
Shame there’s nobody at the ECB with enough vision, or a spine sufficiently strong enough, to take the decision out of his hands.
James Morgan
I don’t see the point in dumping both Flower and Cook. Maybe a new skipper would work better with (or stand up to) Flower?
I see no point in dropping senior players. Two have already gone from this tour, that’s enough from one series at any time.
Carberry should be stuck with, he’s come into what looks like a fractious dressing room and has actually played better than the senior players on a tough tour that started bad and got worse. He needs to be given time in England with a less freaked out group of players to see what he can do.
And obviously Stokes looks like an extremely useful 6/fourth seamer.
The problem is that if we don’t change coaches or players, nothing at all changes. And England desperately, desperately need to change something! All reports indicate that the atmosphere in the dressing room (even pre-Ashes) was stale and joyless. Look what new enthusiasm Lehmann has brought to the Aussie camp. With enjoyment and enthusiasm comes good performances.
At the end of the day, if established players with excellent records are all performing badly at the same time, there’s a problem with the management or dressing room dynamic / environment.
“At the end of the day, if established players with excellent records are all performing badly at the same time, there’s a problem with the management or dressing room dynamic / environment.”
Spot on.
Hoo-friggin-ray,
James, Mate, you’ve got it at last. I’ve just got back from watching the last two tests and you are spot on. The England team was beaten before they walked onto the pitch. The only thing on their minds was how to get the hell out of there quickly. They were already so demoralised that losing in days wasn’t going to make it any worse.
At the press conference after the game I was completely gob smacked to see Cook make a joke and smile. I can already hear the England fans screaming at me that I just don’t understand sophisticated English humour but that’s not the point.
The point is that any Australian captain in the same situation (God forbid) would be begging forgiveness from the country as a whole and would never dare to try and lessen the significance of the disaster. Take a look at the link for an example of how Cook should be feeling right now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkKDQp9BeQY
Heads must roll. Andy Flower must be replaced and his coaching staff need to go with him. If not it really doesn’t matter whether the Australian team is the better than South Africa. They’ll still be good enough to beat England – every time.
Well, I largely agree with you. Except, Australia got whitewashed and humiliated by India and Michael Clarke looked nothing like Kim Hughes. Then Australia got thrashed again and he still didn’t. In fact, he was quite bullish (which proved to be justified). It might satisfy something inside you but I don’t think seeing the skipper begging and crying will do much for the team.
I have to agree. Cook looked far less distraught after losing 5-0 than Clarke did at losing 3-0 a few months before. Just very, very, odd indeed. The whole team environment must change. Did you hear Shane Watson talking about how playing under Lehmann was fun, and gave them the right platform to perform well. Says it all. I think our players were tired and stale. It wasn’t just mental / physical exhaustion; it was being totally fed up with the intense, joyless approach of the management team – all of whom are conservative characters.
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