England’s Test team is at odds with its past players. It could explode into a war

3 months ago 4

In the minutes after Travis Head completed his demolition of England in the first Ashes Test, Ben Stokes sidled up to Jonathan Agnew for a post-match interview with the BBC.

Agnew, the former England pace bowler who has been integral to the Test Match Special radio broadcast since 1991, interviewed Stokes on the boundary’s edge in the minutes after the game ended, and pressed on the issue of preparation.

Michael Vaughan, Ben Stokes and Ian Botham.

After Stokes’ initial answer rolled through phrases like “we believe and we trust in our process”, “hand on heart” and “this is the best way”, Agnew followed up.

“I’ve just answered that question, Aggers,” came the curt reply.

Both Agnew and the England camp have denied there was anything spikier to the incident than a broadcaster asking tough questions and a captain holding his ground. But there was no denial that England’s players have been irritated by what they see as a lack of support from their predecessors on a tough tour.

Agnew echoed many of the sentiments felt and expressed by a host of former England players and captains over numerous weeks leading into the series. The likes of Sir Ian Botham, Sir Alastair Cook, Michael Vaughan and Nasser Hussain had all said similar things.

In their view, England had not prepared adequately with a solitary warm-up match at Lilac Hill. They needed to evolve into a smarter version of the freewheeling game plan favoured by Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum. Most of all, they had to take the opportunity to beat an under-strength Australia in Perth.

There have been plenty of occasions over the past three years when the past player group has questioned elements of Bazball. There was plenty of heat, for example, when England failed to drive home their advantage against Australia in the first Test of the last Ashes series at Edgbaston.

Eager to talk up the importance of the Ashes tour for the legacy of his side, Stokes had mentioned the prospect of joining Douglas Jardine and Ray Illingworth as the only three England captains to regain the urn in Australia.

But he took the disconnect with the past to another level when he pointedly referred to the criticism of “has-beens” in a pre-series briefing with the touring pack of English journalists. Botham spoke for many of his ex-teammates when he uttered the words “prove me wrong, Ben” before the Test started.

Mark Wood, the fast bowler who took up an invitation to speak to his recent teammate Stuart Broad on the latter’s podcast, gave an insight into the players’ attitude in the aftermath of Perth.

“If I say we’re quite level, people aren’t going to be happy with that. If I say it’s really emotional then people will say: ‘Why can’t you be level and go on to the next game?’”

Another fault line opened up a day or two later, when all 11 members of the team that lost in Perth declined to take up a chance to play in the Prime Minister’s XI game in Canberra this weekend. Instead, they will fly to Brisbane on Wednesday for more golf and relaxation, before training resumes.

Vaughan, who as a Fox Cricket commentator has seen more cricket in Australia over the past eight years than most of his countrymen, was unimpressed.

“That staggers me. I’m sorry, but it’s amateurish,” Vaughan wrote for the London Telegraph. “They are an international cricket team. They are cricketers. I can’t get my head around why they all wouldn’t want to just play.”

It had been Vaughan, incidentally, who observed in the weeks before the Ashes that Australia’s Test team still had a problem connecting with past players and the public. “If England can get that first win in Perth, you can create a few divides within the Australian community.”

An hour or so after the Test finished, Langer was seen leaving Optus Stadium with the ECB chief executive, Richard Gould.

There is no suggestion this was anything more than a friendly catch-up: Langer was the senior pro at Somerset for several years in the early 2000s when Gould ran the club.

Gould had watched the violent turn of the match alongside Cricket Australia’s chief executive Todd Greenberg. Both winced at the fact the game was over within two days, costing some $4 million in projected gate profit, but Gould’s was definitely the bigger headache.

His conversation with Langer must have traversed some pretty candid ground. That afternoon, Langer had carved into England as a Seven commentator, attacking the Bazballers for failing to pay any heed to basic ground rules about batting in the west.

“I don’t care what anyone says, ‘oh you play like this, you play like that’,” Langer fumed. “If you do your preparation to come to Perth, one, you’ve got to take some time to get in, usually 25-30 balls to get in. Be patient, watch the ball.

“Second thing is, driving on the up here in Perth, this has been going on for decades, not just for this Test series. Very, very poor batting by England.”

As Langer well knows, the circumstances around his 2022 exit as coach caused fractures that have taken a long time to heal.

Captain Pat Cummins, in stating why he shared the players’ views that a new coach was needed, had been moved to say these words: “To all past players, I want to say this: just as you have always stuck up for your mates, I’m sticking up for mine”. While Cummins has always been good at taking such things in his stride, an underlying sense of mistrust between generations has lingered.

Yet after Perth, Australia find themselves in the unfamiliar position of being the team that more past players, on both sides, respect. For Stokes, McCullum and England, the stress reaction to their opening defeat is at risk of becoming a proper fracture – unless they show a capacity to listen and learn in Brisbane.