The circus rolls on

After an appalling winter in Australia, England set themselves up to fail against an ordinary West Indies, says James Fishe

- James Fisher

I AM still under the age of 30, so forgive me if my sample size is small, but the performance of the England men’s team in Australia this winter was the most abject and demoralising display of professional Test cricket I have seen in my lifetime.

It wasn’t just the 4–0 defeat, but the manner of said defeat. It was Ollie Robinson bowling off-spin in sunglasses in a match they lost by 275 runs. It was the stout refusal to score more than 300 runs in a single innings. It was getting bowled out for 68 in the third Test. It was an amateur display that rightly cost Chris Silverwood, Graham Thorpe and Ashley Giles their jobs and it was even more embarrassing considering the bluster of the past two years about how ‘the Ashes was the main focus of the side’. Here is your reminder that England only avoided a 5–0 whitewash by one wicket. There are myriad reasons why this happened and there are myriad ways it might be fixed. However, as long as Tom Harrison, the England and Wales Cricket Board CEO, is allowed to mark his own homework, it is unlikely that much will change. The institution is rotten and its leadership needs replacing.

The only positive England could take away from the tour down under was the bowling. So, naturally, they have dropped James Anderson and Stuart Broad for the upcoming three Test tour of the West Indies. This winter, Anderson had the lowest average of the bowling side of about 23 and Broad was England’s second-highest wicket-taker, despite missing two games. We shall look on with interest to find out how, exactly, it was their fault that England cannot bat.