‘Weak’ Australia whack as axed star’s return tipped, Stokes hand in Baz fate revealed — UK View

England’s media is licking its lips over the prospect of facing a “weak” Australia at home in the 2027 Ashes — yet still sharpening their knives for English coach Brendon McCullum and managing director of cricket Robert Key.

With the Ashes scoreline at 3-1 heading into the series finale at the SCG, English cricket writers are looking at conclusions of this tour and what they mean going forward.

A chaotic and historic victory at the MCG has given some optimism to the Poms — though the failings Down Under aren’t being ignored due to consolation wins.

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Writing for The Telegraph, in a piece titled ‘The future of Australian cricket looks weak, England are favourites for 2027’, Will Macpherson wrote that the Aussie team was facing clear flaws and a period of change, as it tries to win a series in England for the first time since 2001.

“Perhaps the most uncomfortable truth for England in this series is that Stuart Broad was right: Australia are weaker than any of the last three teams they have fielded in home Ashes series. And yet, England have fallen so far below pre-series expectations that the urn was gone at the first opportunity. That is all despite Josh Hazlewood not playing at all, Pat Cummins appearing just once, Steve Smith missing Adelaide, and Lyon suffering injuries, too. This tour should be a source of deep regret for England,” Macpherson wrote.

“The tourists’ victory in Melbourne was cause for celebration, because it ended a barren run of 15 winless years and 18 matches in Australia. But it was also a reminder of those regrets, and what could have been against a team carrying certain players who look past their sell-by date. Despite the injuries, Australia’s bowlers have just kept coming, but their batting has been patchy all series against an England attack lacking experience. For all the regret on this tour, England fans should be optimistic looking ahead to the next Ashes series, which is just 18 months away.”

Adding that “predicting Australia’s team for that series is mightily difficult” — with four of the current top seven batters on trial at the SCG, leaving only Steve Smith, Travis Head and Alex Carey safe — one player who caught Macpherson’s eye is former Test opener Nathan McSweeney, still just 26.

“He was thrown to the wolves as an opener against Jasprit Bumrah last year, then promptly discarded. He made an unbeaten 226 against a green England Lions side in Brisbane earlier this month and surely has time to come again.”

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Writing for The Athletic, former England captain Nasser Hussain said that there were green shoots for England and ‘dead rubber’ wins should not be discounted as irrelevant. Yet he said that victory in Melbourne should make scrutiny on failure in the opening three Tests all the greater, with McCullum and Key under the microscope.

“It’s a double-edged sword. England only started to play the cricket we know they can halfway through the third Test in Adelaide, and that leaves me incredibly frustrated,” Hussain wrote.

“The view was expressed after the third Test defeat that victories for England in Melbourne and Sydney could save the jobs of coach Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key, and that everything would then be fine.

“Actually, winning here makes it more disheartening in many ways for all the England supporters who have come to Australia throughout this tour, as well as for those at home, because it highlights the opportunities that have been squandered. Especially where England were at lunch on day two in the first Test in Perth.

“From a lead of 99 with nine wickets in hand, they should have won that opening Test and been going to Sydney now with the series at 2-2 at least. So this four-wicket England win puts focus on the mistakes Key and McCullum have admitted to making in their preparations for this tour. In particular, it puts into question the mindset England had coming into this Ashes series.”

Writing for The Guardian, Barney Ronay said that it would be dangerous for either England or Australia to gloss over their failings with victory in Sydney, and that McCullum must be held to account.

“By now McCullum has long since begun to feel like a corporate motivational speaking event that got out of hand. The morning routine guy. The how to fold your T-shirts guy. The one-simple-trick guy. He can be good and valuable. But there’s no need to ask him to run the entire global corporate accounting practice.

“This is also why McCullum must now be held to account under normal rules of success and failure, whatever the endgame to this zombified tour, starting with Sydney this weekend.

“There is an argument that this is a match both Australia and England might be better served, structurally, by losing. Australia to speed the process of rebuilding an ageing team, England to focus minds on the live content of this series.”

He added that skipper Ben Stokes could be pivotal in McCullum’s fate: “The captain will be asked to give his own tour review. A clear, impartial account could well leave McCullum dangling by a thread, and Key required to own up to a lack of oversight. If Stokes feels those above him can learn from this the current regime might hang on.”

Writing for The i Paper, Chris Stocks said that McCullum should be sacked even if he emerges from the Ashes with a 3-2 defeat by winning in Sydney, while Key’s fate could hinge on whether he stayed loyal to the coach.

“Having lost the Ashes inside 11 days of cricket, might England’s miracle win in Melbourne offer a stay of execution for coach Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key?

“Nothing can paper over the cracks of another lost series in Australia, particularly as McCullum himself has admitted the team’s poor preparation was a significant factor in going 3-0 down after the first three matches.

“For me, it’s simple. McCullum should at least lose his job as Test coach after this tour, with a replacement to be found by the start of the next English summer. Whether he would want to remain only as head of the white-ball teams after that would be debatable.

“Key, a good man who is perhaps too often keen to please his employees, could yet survive this tour – but not if he continues to show unswerving loyalty to McCullum.”

Yet writing for The Times, former England player Steve James said that there remained merit in the hyper-aggressive ‘Bazball’ approach championed by McCullum.

James wrote that attacking was better than grinding towards an inevitable dismissal on the violently-seaming Australian pitches delivered for this series, and that there was fresh optimism to England’s batting after victory in Melbourne.

“The truth is that grinding it out on spicy pitches was the only option available to most of us old-timers. We did not possess the range of strokes available to today’s players. We used to get berated for hitting the ball out of the net, whereas nowadays players and coaches wait in the stands to collect big hit after big hit. The attacking skills and muscular power of modern batsmen are simply on a different level. A good time making quick runs is often better than a long time scratching around for very little,” James wrote.

“Harry Brook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett and Jacob Bethell all played hugely important, if short, innings in Melbourne. Let’s hope they can translate them into proper Test-match innings on a proper pitch in Sydney.”

Writing for The Daily Mail, veteran cricket writer Lawrence Booth took at shot at Australia’s reaction to the MCG loss, saying: “England deserved their win at Melbourne, and it’s been instructive to learn how many Australians seem unable to concede the point.”

He said he had been forced to rethink his opinion that the Aussies were typically good losers.

“The reaction to their two-day triumph at Melbourne suggests the hypothesis needs tweaking. ‘England won a game of cricket at the MCG,’ blared one newspaper, ‘but this was no Test match.’” Booth observed, during his sixth Ashes tour Down Under.

“Yet when Australia emerged victorious a few weeks ago from the two-day Test at Perth, it was widely regarded as fair dinkum, a perfectly reasonable stick with which to beat the Poms. ‘It was Bazball, not the pitch’, said one headline, overlooking the detail that the lowest total had been Australia’s first-innings 132. Some two-day wins, it turns out, are more equal than others.

“In the rush to diminish England’s win in Melbourne, another Australian journalist wondered: ‘Can you care about a scramble between teams too hungover to care themselves?’ Another reporter dismissed it as a ‘fluke’.

“And while England were still basking in the afterglow of their first victory in this country for nearly 15 years, the Australian narrative had long since moved on to the MCG pitch, with curator Matt Page shoved front and centre to apologise, like a Middle Ages witch ready to face a dunking.”