There has been plenty of criticism about the England team’s preparation for the upcoming Ashes series ,especially from former England legends like Ian Botham and Geoffrey Boycott besides Australia’s Ian Healy. A cursory look at England’s red-ball games in the lead up to the Ashes, which will start with the first Ashes Test in Perth from November 21, shows that England’s only preparation game in Australia for this series is a three-day match against the England Lions (the England A team), starting on Thursday at Lilac Hill.
The much-vaunted Ashes series is critical for the England team, they are trying to break a record of going 14 years without victory in Australia. The last series win for England on Australian soil was in 2010-11. Since then, England have slumped to 5-0, 4-0, and 4-0 series defeats Down Under in Ashes series. More importantly, there are no players from that England team in the present England side. The Associated Press also noted that some of England’s biggest names in the current side like Ben Stokes and Joe Root have never won a Test match in Australia.
England skipper Ben Stokes, though, is not too fazed by the challenge that lies ahead for his team.
“There’s obviously state (domestic first-class) cricket going on at the moment. Time has got to be taken into consideration as well. Some of our squad members were playing the (white-ball) series in New Zealand,” Stokes said on Wednesday.
Stokes pointed out that cricket’s “jam-packed” schedule makes it more difficult to prepare for a five-match Test series than “10, 15, 20, 30 years ago.”
“We put a lot of time and effort into how we prepare for every series, and that hasn’t changed with this one,” Stokes added. “Come the 21st of this month, we know that we would have done everything possible that we could have done.”
(With inputs from AP)
