With the England team coming under a lot of flak having lost the Ashes 3-0, the scrutiny has intensified in the last couple of days with videos surfacing online of England players drinking and partying four-day break between the second and third Test in Noosa. Former England player Michael Vaughan, however, said that while he will not criticize the cricketers for having a good time on tour, he would criticise their performances on the field, which he felt stemmed from weak leadership.
“The one thing that sticks with me though is how often we hear England talk about pressure. You do not hear other teams mentioning it as much and I do not think England are under any more pressure than anyone else. It is something they tell themselves too often. The one piece of advice I will give to the players is that when you start making stupid decisions on the field, you are more likely to make a few stupid decisions off it as well and they have to improve,” Vaughan wrote in his column for The Telegraph.
“They have to become a more mature group who make good cricket decisions. That stems from the leadership because they have allowed this kind of culture to grow for too long. Maybe now is the time that they look themselves in the mirror as a group and recognise they need to improve and identify what they need to do to change. They have two games left in Australia to show they can change the way they play and how they prepare for the big moments. It has been a shambles so far, but it does not mean they cannot gain a huge amount in the next two weeks,” he added.
England who came in with a lot of hype for this edition of the Ashes have found themselves totally outmatched and outplayed by an Australia team which played the first 2 Tests without regular captain Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood. Cummins would return in the 3rd Test with Steve smith sitting out that one with vertigo but the result remained the same.
England lost the 1st Test in Perth and the 2nd Test at Brisbane by 8 wickets while they were defeated by 82 runs in the 3rd match at Adelaide. With Ben Stokes and Co already 3-0 down and with no chance of reclaiming the urn, they now have to fight hard in the last 2 matches at Melbourne and Sydney in order to avoid the embarrassment of a 5-0 whitewash.
