Nasser Hussain said England’s result against Australia in the Ashes ultimately proved to be “no different” from past disastrous away defeats.
England’s latest defeat on mainland Australia was confirmed by the hosts’ 82-point victory in Adelaide on Sunday. This meant that the holders finished the series with just 3 out of 5 Tests.
This was the first away series in the Buzzball era since Brendon McCullum took over as head coach and Ben Stokes as captain in 2022 after England lost 4-0 four years ago.
And while Hussain praises his coach and captain for making a change, he says old weaknesses have resurfaced.
“I really like the fact that they’ve done different things in the last four years since the last Ashes drubbing,” the former England captain said on the latest episode of Sky Sports Cricket Podcast’s Ashes Daily after the third Test.
“I like the fact that they thought differently and planned ahead. If we kept doing the same things we’ve always done, we’d get the same results. So they thought they needed to do something different. I really like that. They were thinking ahead.”
“But the fact of the matter is, if you had been here and watched them over the last three or four weeks, you would have thought, ‘Are they really that different to other teams in England?’ They don’t bat well, they don’t bowl well, they don’t catch well. At key moments and high-pressure situations, they succumbed.
“Aside from (Andrew) Strauss’ team (2010-11), all the other English teams have come here and lost convincingly. Joe Root has now played 17 Tests in Australia and hasn’t won one yet.”
“So there was this rethinking, and the fact is that despite the massive rethinking and left-field selection and ‘you’ve got to have pace’ and ‘you’ve got to have batsmen who put pressure on the bowlers’, we’ve actually had exactly the same results as we’ve had on almost every other tour of the Ashes. That’s why I was disappointed, because this time it was against this opponent, I thought it could have been a little different.”
“That hasn’t changed.”
Others: This team is playing 25% below the best
Fellow former England captain Michael Atherton said the defeat was made particularly disappointing by the fact Australia suffered injuries to key players before and during the series.
“We’ve been on a lot of Ash tours, I think this is our 10th, and we’ve played on some bad tours, seen some bad tours, seen some whitewashes,” Atherton said.
“Actually, this was more disappointing for me than anything else, because I felt England had the tools to do the job here, or at least try, and I felt the Australian team had weaknesses and areas to exploit.
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Ben Stokes reacts after England lose to Australia in third series Test and Ashes
“They have lost 3-0 in three Test matches to a team that has only played Pat Cummins in one game, Josh Hazlewood in three games and Nathan Ryan in none.
Referring to Hussain’s side who lost 4-1 in Australia 22 years ago, Atherton added: “The record-breaking Ashes defeat here in 2003-03 was against a really great Australian team and that’s why it’s so disappointing for me here.”
“Years ago, Ashes-winning captain Len Hutton said we had to play 25 per cent better than Australia’s best to win. My feeling about this team is that they are 25 per cent less than their best with bat, ball and field. That’s what makes these three games so disappointing for me.”
What happens on the fourth test? What will England do with Jack?
With their hopes of reclaiming the Ashes gone after just 11 days of play, England head to Melbourne for the fourth Test starting on Boxing Day, looking to regain some pride and get on the scoreboard in Australia for the first time since 2011.
Stokes has already said that despite the disappointment of losing the series, “we’re not going to quit.”
On what England should do with Will Jacks, who is struggling with the ball, Hussain said: “Some people will argue that he should play as a batsman who bowls balls with a little bit of spin off.
“So play at number three if you want in the next game. Next game you won’t play with Ollie Pope. You’ll play with (Jacob) Bethell or Jax at number three. We’ll have to think carefully about that.”
England captain Stokes consoles Will Jacks after England’s third Test defeat
“And this is the other thing I have to say about England – they’ve been preparing for this Ashes series for four years and when they get to Adelaide they haven’t selected a first-line spinner.
“Now Stokes can watch that ball as much as he wants. It was a good ball when he got it out to Nathan Ryan. But for me that was like a moment where they’re playing their best spinners and we’re playing part-timers and this ball spun on the fourth and fifth day.”
“With so much preparation before the tour, how did they end up in this situation? How did they get to Adelaide without playing as a front-line spinner?”
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