As the raw emotion of another loss hit the England camp, Brendon McCullum stated the team trained “too hard” in the build-up to the Gabba Test match.
This is a team that was heavily criticised for their lack of preparation prior to the start of the Ashes campaign by former England players or “has-beens” as Ben Stokes called them.
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However, the head coach now believed they trained too much before being embarrassed in Brisbane.
McCullum, not one to pay too much attention to outside noise, seems to have acknowledged how his team is perceived and maybe tried to rectify that prior to the start of the second Test match.
England chose not to send Test players to play in the pink-ball match in Canberra, instead preferring the heat and bouncier nets of Brisbane.
Five days in a row, with the day before the Test made optional for the group, was what the doctor ordered, despite having two weeks between the Test matches.
I get where he is coming from to a certain degree, but I liken those five consecutive days as almost cramming for a test at school or university.
Now, be honest, did cramming work for you? It certainly didn’t for me, even though I tried to justify my approach to my parents.
Preparation comes way before you even land on Australian shores.
I have no doubt this England side will become a force to be reckoned with. However, they just are not match-hardened enough in these types of conditions.
Even after day three, England assistant coach Marcus Trescothick fronted the media and again batted away questions about preparation. “I think the way that it’s done, preparation nowadays is not done necessarily by playing three Shield games as it would be here. Like going back in the years gone before, you know, tours are a lot more condensed. Cricket is a lot more condensed nowadays,” he pleaded.
I agree the global cricket schedule is a nightmare. After England’s last Test series at home against India, they had a break — and rightly so after a gruelling five-match series — before losing a white-ball series in New Zealand.
Ben Stokes was more accountable in his assessment and effectively put his teammates on notice after again trying to single-handedly keep the Poms in the contest.
“A lot of it comes down to not being able to stand up to the pressure of this game, this format, when the game is on the line,” a dejected Stokes said.
“It is very disappointing (the outcome of the match) because of the ability of the players that we have in that dressing room.”
But this was his most startling revelation: “They say Australia isn’t a place for weak men. We’re definitely not weak, but we need to find something, because we are two-nil down.”
This last comment looked almost a backtrack after realising what he had said about the team being weak.
Test cricket is the hardest format. It challenges players across five days on their mental and physical abilities and their application to the game.
Ben Stokes is trying to lead by example. Credit: Gareth Copley/Getty Images
Add to that travelling away and playing in foreign conditions to what you have been brought up on and winning in Australia is bloody hard.
The pièce de résistance to all of this is an Ashes campaign in front of a hostile crowd with close to 150 years of history associated with this contest.
Stokes is right, Australia isn’t a place for weak men.
Remember, we are a nation the British started as hellish punishment for the unwanted with 150,000 convicts sent to the other side of the world. Surviving the journey was one thing, surviving the harsh land was another.
Australia is a squad that many have said is an aging side. It’s clear they need to regenerate the squad with the average age 33.5 compared with 28 for England.
But with age comes wisdom and decades of combined experience on Australian pitches.
That was shown by all the Aussie bowlers at the Gabba bowling a lot fuller than their English counterparts.
Though more importantly the Australians were willing at times to play boring cricket, whether that be with the bat or with the ball.
Based on the reactions of both Stokes and McCullum, it is going to be hard for England to turn this around.
The worst part for the Poms is Australia are still yet to unleash our best playing XI, with the captain Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon expected to make a return in Adelaide next week — where the veteran spinner has taken his most wickets of any ground he has bowled at (63).
Plus the two openers, Jake Weatherald and Travis Head, returning to their home ground, with Head having scored three consecutive Test hundreds coming into the third Test.
I have no doubt this England side will become a force to be reckoned with.
However, they just are not match-hardened enough in these types of conditions.
Maybe a better high-performance approach to preparation before the next Ashes Down Under may be the best way to tackle the Aussies next time as this series is all but lost.
