7 d. ago Sack the vibe: goodbye Bazball and hello England’s search for a cricketing soul | Barney Ronay

There have to be consequences for Rob Key and Brendon McCullum but English cricket’s problems lie much deeper and will be much harder to fixIt seemed fitting, as the final moments ticked down at the Sydney Cricket Ground, as the day, the match, the tour seemed to ooze and melt a little at the edges under a hard white January sun, that Ben Stokes should finish this Ashes series still standing, but only just.It was at least a suitably slapstick final session in front of a scattered, holiday-ish crowd. Australia custard-pied their way to a victory total of 160, narrowly avoiding falling pianos, dangling off giant clocktowers along the way. Continue reading...

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8 d. ago Jacob Bethell plays starring role in Ashes Wars Episode 5: A New Hope | Barney Ronay

A brilliant hundred against an elite attack on a wearing pitch shows this England team can survive and evolveEt in dystopia ego. In the midst of death, we are in life. On a throbbingly hot deep blue afternoon in Sydney, as this ghost ship of an England Ashes tour creaked towards its final dock, the fourth day of the fifth Test produced an unexpected late plot twist. Something good happened.Jacob Bethell batted for six hours from mid-morning to close of play and scored a hundred of rare beauty at the SCG. It was an easy, crisp kind of beauty too, all classical lines and symmetry, an innings of layers and gears, of comforting rhythms, shot through with moments of balletic power. Continue reading...

Events

9 d. ago Conscript Potts is England’s paratrooper fighting a lonely Ashes war in Sydney | Barney Ronay

While England’s batting always gets to hog the limelight, this tour has also been lost in the bowling fade-outsForty-five minutes into a quietly overcast morning at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Matt Potts came into the England attack from the Randwick End, and immediately began running through his variations.His first ball was wide and smashed through cover by Travis Head. His second ball was both short and wide and hacked over gully by Travis Head. His third ball was short and straight and smashed past midwicket by Travis Head. His fourth ball was defended with a show of furrowed caution, to loud, mocking cheers from a crowd that had begun to tuck into the day. Welcome to the treadmill, Pottsy. And yes, it’s always like this around here. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago McCullum must be held to account even if England end Ashes with another win | Barney Ronay

A 3-2 series scoreline may make it hard to change coach but you don’t reward a failure of planning because the players clawed a bit back when it was too lateThere’s a good origins-story-style video in the Sky Sports masterclass archive. Filmed at Edgbaston in 2016, it shows the blue-sky brothers, Brendon McCullum and Rob Key, back when the world was still young, looking sharp and chiselled, laughing and joshing on the outfield, and nominally discussing how to bat in T20 cricket.And yes, the chemistry, well, the chemistry is overpowering. It almost feels like a romantic intrusion, the viewer cast as gooseberry. This is Coldplay kiss-cam energy. This is like watching Bacall and Bogart fall in love on screen. You know how to whistle don’t you, Keysey? You just put your lips together and enter into a transcendent game state. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago England attack’s holiday fling might be the start of something more serious | Barney Ronay

If Josh Tongue and Brydon Carse can repeat their MCG displays, this may be more than a marriage of convenienceWhat does it mean? How should we feel? What are the roots that clutch? What branches grow out of this stony rubbish? For most of its combined 142 overs, watching England’s fourth Test victory in Melbourne felt like drifting in and out of a drunken sleep while trying and failing to follow the plot of a particularly gruelling action movie.Why is this car chase happening? Why is The Rock defusing a torpedo inside a collapsing Maya temple? Why are they running to the top of the nearest generic tall building for this final, final, final showdown? Wait. Will Jacks is playing? Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago England’s MCG triumph is a genuine coup – and a picture of what might have been | Barney Ronay

A properly prepped, balanced and weaponised team finally had the chops to expose Australia’s weaknessesNa-na na-na na-na na na na, Duckett’s on the piss. On the piss. Duckett’s on the piss.Don’t take me home, please don’t take me home. And while we’re here, stand up, stand up, please do stand up if you love a two-day Test on a pitch as green and ridged as an under-ripe roasting potato. For an hour in mid-afternoon on day two at the MCG England’s top order finally did the thing. The clocks stopped. Dogs miaowed. Birds flew backwards across the sky. And Test cricket turned into darts. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Duckett and Bethell were dangled out to dry by failings of a slack setup | Barney Ronay

No rational judge could have expected England’s fall guys to succeed at the MCG where they were thrown on to a festive bonfireGuess who just got back today? Those wild-eyed boys that had been away. This was a day of brittle, over-caffeinated cricket, on an MCG pitch streaked with faint green ridges. But it was also a day when the boys were, however briefly, back in town.Ben Duckett and Jacob Bethell have been the two protagonists in the grainy, Zapruder-style footage from England’s six-day, mid-series jig-about by the sea. True to apparent recent form, both were here for a good time not a long time as England were bowled out for 110 in 29.5 overs. Both batted like men groping for the light switch in the dark against a new ball that seamed the width of the bat at times. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago Auf Wiedersehen, pets: Duckett and Bethell were (briefly) back in town but failings lie at the top | Barney Ronay

No rational judge could have expected England’s fall guys to succeed at the MCG where they were thrown on to a festive bonfire by a lack of red-ball cricket and a slack set-upGuess who just got back today? Those wild-eyed boys that had been away. This was a day of brittle, over-caffeinated cricket, on an MCG pitch streaked with faint green ridges at the start, like an under-ripe, peeled potato. But it was also a day when the boys were, however briefly, back in town.Ben Duckett and Jacob Bethell have been the two protagonists in the grainy, Zapruder-style footage from England’s six-day, mid-series jig-about by the sea. True to apparent recent form, both were here for a good time not a long time as England were bowled out for 110 in 29.5 overs. Both batted like men groping for the light switch in the dark against a new ball that seamed the width of the bat at times. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago English cricket meets Spinal Tap as Rob Key delivers latest Ashes autopsy | Barney Ronay

The England men’s cricket MD offered a postmortem that didn’t address the nuts and bolts of the system he manages“It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.” David St Hubbins, lead vocalist Spinal Tap.“There’s a real difference between aggressive and dumb.” Rob Key, managing director, England cricket. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Arrogant England’s cricket machine collapses like a castle of dust in 11 days | Barney Ronay

So this is Christmas. And what have we done? The Ashes is over. With two Tests still to comeWhen the moment finally came the visuals were perfect: clean lines, neat angles, figures picked out in crisp afternoon sun against the almost satirical splendour of Adelaide Oval.Scott Boland took the final wicket to seal Australia’s unassailable 3-0 Ashes series lead, the 74th time this moment has been played out down the centuries, and immediately the white shapes converged to form a bobbing huddle. England’s batters stood in an attitude of formal deflation. The umpires began their priestly last-things walk, framed against that huge, empty, lime-green field. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Harry Brook’s moment of madness a fitting epitaph for England’s flawed cult of Baz | Barney Ronay

The day was transformed in Australia’s favour by the batter’s failed swish, a perfect demonstration of talent being wasted and Test matches squanderedTough on Harry Brook, yes. But we must also be tough on the causes of Harry Brook. No child is born playing performative reverse-hoicks with a Test match to be saved, just as most acts of cult-like behaviour have their roots in a smooth-talking cult-like instructor.For England the beginning of the end of the age of Baz started when the disciples of Baz began to deny such a thing even existed; to insist that the buckle-up-and-enjoy-the-ride stuff didn’t actually exist at all, but was instead a creation of another, much worse cult, also known in this world as “the outside”. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Waste of Jacks’ talent speaks volumes for England’s bodged Ashes planning | Barney Ronay

The highly talented England player is simply being used for when either the batting or bowling goes wrongFor anyone still curious about the exact role of Will Jacks in this England Test team, the key is probably to see him as a kind of a tell, a set of entrails, a weather vane on the state of the game.The first rule of Jacks goes like this. If you can see Will Jacks on your TV screen, it’s bad. If Will Jacks is bowling when you wake up something has gone wrong. If Will Jacks is batting something has also probably gone wrong. Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago There are only two things wrong with this England team. They can’t Baz. And they can’t ball | Barney Ronay

Even losing seems to involve doing so without the qualities that were supposed to make England winIt’s a cruel, cruel summer. By the close of play in Adelaide, on the kind of superheated afternoon when just going outside basically involves setting fire to your own hair, it was clear this was the day the music finally died for England’s Ashes tour; even if that music has long since faded, like the tinkle of a haunted pianola in an empty house.The start of day two had presented a familiar challenge. Here was another occasion where it was necessary to bat properly. And yes, it is always this day. The bat properly day. Do it. Do the batting. The proper batting. By now this seems to raise some very basic existential questions. Continue reading...

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