Geoffrey Boycott feels this English team is better than their Australian counterparts and can win the Ashes Photo Credit: Reuters
Former captain Geoffrey Boycott has lashed out at Ben Stokes and Co. For being “away from buzzballs” and not prioritizing winning, he said England were in danger of turning the Ashes into an exhibition series.
England, playing aggressive cricket under the leadership of coach Brendon McCullum and captain Stokes, got the wrong result as they faced defeat. A two-wicket defeat in the opening Ashes match at Edgbaston earlier this week.
“England are in danger of reducing the Ashes to an exhibition,” Boycott wrote in his scathing column. ‘Wire’,
“England has fallen prey to buzzball and it seems that entertaining is more important than winning. But England supporters want one thing more than anything else – winning the Ashes.” The legendary cricketer said that winning is more important than entertainment.
“Getting quick runs, hitting lots of fours and sixes is great. It’s great. But only if England don’t miss out on the big prize of beating Australia. If Australia go home with the Ashes at the end of the series, we We would feel sick, no matter how much we were entertained.” Boycott claimed that the much-anticipated Ashes series between the two rivals would lose importance if England did not play to win.
“If England are not playing to win then these Ashes Tests are not that important. They are just exhibition matches. They have brought it back to the fore. It is not about entertaining and then winning. It is about winning first. is about.”
“Entertain by all means but cricket is like chess. There are moments when you need to defend. Sometimes you need to be patient and accept it.”
“Don’t just attack, attack, attack. England need some common sense and practicality. That’s all. They don’t need to be positive because they are a better team than Australia and if they show up they will win.” That’s common sense,” he said.
The former opener believes that England have been guilty of not seizing the opportunity despite dominating the match.
“England beat Australia almost every session at Edgbaston but lost. When they’re on top, be ruthless and don’t get sloppy. We kept getting ahead of Australia and then got sloppy to let them behind.
“They are in danger of letting arrogance be the cause of their downfall. […], It will be sad if one year of exciting cricket goes out of his head. He gave Australia a get out of jail free card. I find it silly.” Batting first, England declared their first innings at 393/8, with Joe Root scoring an unbeaten 118.
“The rule is, when the pitch is good, score as many runs as you can before it turns bad. With Root’s century and Ollie Robinson, who can bat, England would have scored 40-50 more runs, but they took wickets. Boycott also questioned the all-out approach of the home batsmen in the second innings.
“When they batted in the second innings they went crazy. England were scoring five and six runs per over, but for some reason the batsmen were trying to score more than that and got themselves out.
“There were five: Ben Duckett, Root, Harry Brook, Jonny Bairstow and Moeen Ali. It was unnecessary.”
However, Boycott feels that this English team is better than their Australian counterparts and can win the Ashes.
“Stokes and McCullum have received a lot of praise for the way they have changed the attitude towards the England team, but just playing one way is not using our brains. If we are more interested in praise than winning, we are wrong.”
“I and many former players think that an England team can beat these Australian players. But don’t waste that talent and commitment by getting it to your head.”