NEWS
Follow UsFormer England skipper Nasser Hussain admitted that red-ball cricket in England needs a total reset, but believes that the Three Lions have shot themselves in the foot through over-complicated long-term planning.
The last 12 months have seen the ECB rest and rotate players for mental and physical reasons, but Hussain feels the ECB’s approach has been ‘too formulaic and pre-planned.’
With the Three Lions having the tendency to look at the future rather than the present - encapsulated by the decision to rest Mark Wood in Adelaide - the former England skipper called for Chris Silverwood and Joe Root to concentrate on the ‘here and now’.
“England have had to look after their players in Covid times, both physically and mentally, but for all their good intentions the extent of their long-term planning and rest-and-rotation policy has cost them Test matches,” Hussain wrote in his Daily Mail column.
“I would talk to Jimmy Anderson two years ago and he would know how many games he would be playing in the next series. I am sure that was the same with Mark Wood ahead of the Ashes. It’s all been too formulaic and pre-planned.
“So, the initial reset has to see them looking down at the pitch ahead of any Test and selecting the best team for that game, as if it were the World Test Championship final. Pick and play as if the score was 2-2 and they have to win to clinch the Ashes.”
After England surrendered the urn post the embarrassing defeat in Melbourne, there has been plenty of off-field noise, with the media calling for heads to roll in wake of the team’s shocking showing.
Ahead of the fourth Test in Sydney, starting January 5th, Hussain called for the English players to focus on the task at hand and hoped for the batters to show the resolve they didn’t do in Melbourne.
“England have to leave all that for now to Ashley Giles and those who sort out schedules and policies in our game. The players’ job in the last two Tests is for the batters who do play to find a way. They should have been digging deep since Melbourne and before tonight’s fourth Test in Sydney to find mental toughness to show in these last two games.”