The Three Lions finally opened their account in the series with a win in the fourth Test in Melbourne.
England finally found a way to come back into the five-match Ashes series with a commanding victory in Melbourne last week. Though the game ended in less than two days with the pitch being ruled out as unsatisfactory by the ICC, the Three Lions will take some confidence from the fact that they managed to win a Test on the tour, which seemed an uphill task after the first three outings.
Much has been said about the fact that the problem was not about the ability. The English side has enough talent and firepower to give some tough fight to the Australians. However, they have not been able to capitalise on the big moments in the series, which brings them staring down the barrel with a series score line of 3-1.
Despite the victory in Melbourne which finally gave the camp some reason to smile, former England skipper Michael Vaughan has denied celebration of the victory, ruling it out as a ‘lottery.’ Vaughan wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that the team must aim to win big in the fifth and final Test in Sydney to avoid any kind of scrutiny for Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum.
“I think it is a massive game for England (Sydney). Its nice to win a game of cricket, but lets be honest, it was a complete lottery in Melbourne. It was not a proper game of Test match cricket. For the future and for this management in particular, they need to win a strong game of cricket here, that’s not a two-dayer”, the former skipper wrote.
A lot has been speculated around the roles of Stokes and McCullum after the drubbing they received in the first three Tests. However, Vaughan stated that the Three Lions need a commanding victory in the last Test in Sydney in order to avoid any complications in terms of the roles of the management. If England lose by a big margin, some serious conversations might take place.
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Apart from not capitalising on the big moments in the Test matches, England have done a lot wrong in the series till now. Some of the shots that the batters have played have questioned their game awareness, which have resulted in throwing their wickets away at crucial junctures. 36 wickets fell inside two days of the fourth Test in Melbourne, which would still be a concern.
England came into this Ashes series on the back of a lot of preparation, which they were pretty outspoken about since the first day. However, their approach to play the fearless brand of cricket went for a toss in the first three Tests. Ben Stokes has been sticking around the crease for long durations of time but the rest have not come out enough in support of their skipper, which is problem.
As per Vaughan, the road ahead starts with acceptance. The management an players must accept the fact that a lot of things went wrong for the Three Lions. After the defeat in the third Test, McCullum spoke to the media accepting that he might have made an error in judging the preparation for the side. There were all the signs to indicate that the team was just not well prepared coming into the series.
“I think chopping and changing is not necessarily the right thing for English cricket. Whatever happens at the end of this tour, they got to accept that they got a lot of things wrong. If they are going to be stubborn to think that they were a bit unlucky or things didn’t quite go the way they wanted, we have a problem going forward”, wrote Vaughan.
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