England legend Sir Geoffrey Boycott absolutely ripped apart the national team for losing the 1st Test match of the 5-match Ashes series to Australia in 2 days. Writing in his column for The Telegraph UK, which was titled “I cannot take this stupid England team seriously anymore,” the 85-year-old said that the England team do not listen to anyone and live in their own bubble which has brought about their downfall.
“Before this series started Ben Stokes told the world that any ex-player who criticised them or had a different opinion were “has-beens” because Test cricket had changed and the past was irrelevant. Well, from this has been the message is simple: when you keep throwing away Test matches by doing the same stupid things it is impossible to take you seriously. They never learn, because they never listen to anyone outside their own bubble, because they truly believe their own publicity,” Boycott wrote.
“It is simple. Brainless batting and bowling lost England the match. A 40-run lead on a fast bouncy low scoring pitch was huge and with Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope together at one stage England were in charge at effectively 100 for one. But as exciting as this England team can be, they are always only a blink of an eye away from self destruction.
“Bazball, bad judgement, overconfidence, whatever the reason it makes winning matches difficult. Against top teams like India and Australia it is a huge factor in losing,” he wrote.
The Ashes was off to a newsworthy start when the 1st Test in Perth couldn’t last 2 whole days with 19 wickets falling on Day 1, followed by 13 wickets on Day 2 which included England’s second innings where the Bazballers could only set a 205-run target for the hosts even after leading by 40 runs after Australia’s 1st innings.
Travis Head pulled off one of the most miraculous Ashes century when he slammed 123 runs off 83 balls while Marnus Labuscagne scored a half century as Australia won the Test by 8 wickets and took 1-0 lead in the series.
