Stuart Broad (left) and Ben Stokes during the first ash test at Edgbaston. Photo: Popperfoto/Philip Brown
England has been swept away with Bazball and seems to think that having fun is more important than winning. But what England fans want more than anything is to win the Ashes. To quickly score points, score a lot of fours and sixes is great. This is cool. But only if England doesn't lose sight of the big prize of defeating Australia.
If Australia goes home with the Ashes at the end of the series, we'll be sick no matter how much we've had fun.
They risk letting arrogance be their downfall or, to quote William Shakespeare in Hamlet, hanging from their own firecracker. They are going to defeat themselves. It would be sad if playing cricket for a year turned their heads.
Have fun by all means, but cricket is like chess. There are times when you need to defend yourself. Sometimes you have to be patient and accept it.
Don't just attack, attack, attack. England needs a little common sense and pragmatism. That's all it takes.
They don't have to change by being positive because they are better than Australia and will win if they just show common sense. When they are at their best, be ruthless and don't be sloppy. We kept ahead of Australia and then let them back inadvertently. They gave Australia a free jailbreak card. I find this stupid.
I listened to Stuart Broad during the test. He is a good example. He said in an interview that it doesn't matter if we lose, as long as we have fun. No, no and NO. It matters.
Was Ben Stokes' statement worth England's first test?
If England isn't playing to win, then these Ash tests aren't that important. These are just exhibition matches.
They got him back to the front. It's not about having fun and then winning. It's about winning first. The greatest golfer on the planet, Jack Nicklaus, said he didn't care where he ended up at the end of the first three rounds. All he cared about was being first after the fourth round.
England beat Australia in almost every session at Edgbaston but lost. That's what Nicklaus was talking about.
The rule is to get as many runs as possible when the field is good before it goes bad. England could score another 40-50 runs with Root for a hundred and Ollie Robinson who can bat but stated he would take a wicket.
When they hit in the second innings, they went crazy. England were batting five and six points per over, but for some reason the batsmen were trying to score more and were out of the game. There were five of them: Ben Duckett, Ruth, Harry Brooke, Johnny Barstow and Moin Ali. This was not necessary.
Moin Ali was one of several English batsmen who played aggressively. Photo: Sean Botterill/Getty Images
Ben Stokes and Brandon McCallum have rightly received a lot of praise for how they have changed the way England are treated, but playing only one way is not using your brain. If we are more interested in praise than in winning, then we are wrong.
I and many former players think that this England team will beat these Australians. But don't waste that talent and dedication by letting it go to your head.
Nobody argues that Ben Fawkes is a better goalkeeper than Bairstow. But no one can imagine that Fawkes would have taken over the catch and dead end that Bairstow missed. Would he have made 78 runs like Bairstow did in the first inning?
It's not a new idea to pick the best goaltender, but it never lasts. Very quickly, England went back to the keeper batsman because sometimes specialist wicket-keepers also miss chances and don't score as many points under pressure as the batsman-keeper.
Johnny's problems with the wicket stem from his lack of cricket. It's rusty. Personally, I would let him bat and wicket for Yorkshire in all their matches and choose him for the third Test at Headingley because he needs competitive cricket after such a bad injury and a long break.
My only game. the concern about his hitting is that whenever he plays a sweep or reverse sweep, he's out of the game. He does not know how to choose the length or line of the ball. He strikes amazingly from above, so why not tie the lure to the ground in this way. There's no point in playing pranks because the rest of the team is doing it.
Johnny Bairstow made some mistakes but scored with a bat not bad. Photo: Getty Images/Ryan Pierse
As I predicted, Ben Duckett pulled away, opening the bat's snout and leading it through the gully. This is his favorite scoring arc, but I wrote that he needs to be careful with better bowlers with more speed. With a faster attack, the ball can slip off the face and is not as easy to control. What he wants to do is play right in the middle and back into the bowler. Or leave the ball. Then if he hits the old ball, it will be a different game.
England doesn't need to change much for the next test. If Moen's finger is hurt, just play Mark Wood and let the Root Cup spin. It usually always has something for seamstresses at the Lord with a bias. Wood's extra pace protects Stokes a bit and takes the load off 40-year-old Jimmy Anderson and 36-year-old Broad.
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