England’s defeat in the 2025/26 Ashes – Australia took a mere 11 days to retain the urn – has more to do with the difference in quality between the two sides than tactical approach.
In the cult podcast The Worst Idea of All Time, New Zealand comedians Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery commit to watching the same critically panned film over and over again “until it becomes worthwhile”. Following England’s neverending Ashes travails in Australia has proven a similar exercise in futility and repetition, with the same script playing out time and again, and the only fun to be found in gallows humour.
To that end, trying to pick which of England’s tours down under has been least and most lamentable might be the only fun left to have. As it stands, 2025/26 has claims to both, and where you land might well betray your sympathies or scepticism towards England’s entire project under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum.
The case for it being the worst is partly numerical – eleven days taken to surrender the series equals the post-War record – and partly based on the scale of the disappointment. While Ashes tours always arrive with a degree of deluded optimism, this time, the hope that England could compete, if not win, was genuine. Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood began the series on the treatment table. Steve Smith and Nathan Lyon have now joined them, with Khawaja having also spent time out of the side. It was an aging Australia side, though one still with enough quality to start as favourites. But, having had a largely positive three and a half years under McCullum since the last Ashes disaster, gearing everything towards this tour, pioneering an enterprising style of play, backing the batters with the skills to succeed in Australia and attempting to groom a stable of quicks that could prove more than cannon fodder, the optimism was partly of their own making. If this is the biggest disappointment of the lot, it’s in part because they deserve credit for giving hope in the first place.
How bad have England’s performances been this series, really, once you strip away the bluster and the discourse? There have been truly abject periods. The collapse to Scott Boland at Perth, driving on the up again and again, and then the total cluelessness in the face of Travis Head’s assault. The complete lack of control with the pink ball in hand, and then the lack of application with the bat in the same game. England’s wounds hurt more because they are self-inflicted. On the other hand, the Adelaide Test, even while not all that close in the end, is still the closest England have come to winning in Australia since 2010/11. And the Perth Test is the deepest into a game that England have been favourites to win, leading by 100 one wicket down in the second innings. Perth featured a bowling performance in the first innings that was the ideal of what this England attack can be, and that has been McCullum’s mindset, and Rob Key’s too. Picking consistent, limited cricketers hasn’t worked in Australia: so instead, go with those who, on their day, might compete, even if that day won’t come all that regularly. That inevitably means a big gap between best and worst, and the worst has come too frequently.
The larger point can be found here, and in England’s demise at Adelaide. England may well rue the ‘what ifs’ in the defeat that sealed their fate. What if Snicko hadn’t malfunctioned on the first day, giving Alex Carey the opportunity to complete a crucial century? What if Marnus Labuschagne hadn’t caught his two blinders at slip, or what if Harry Brook had taken two equivalent chances off Usman Khawaja and Travis Head, who each added more than 70 runs after their lives? But really, this was a defeat that underlined the scale of the gap between the two sides and highlighted the reason for England’s new approach, as frustrating as it can be: Australia are really good, and, in these conditions in particular, much better than England. While unusually profligate with the bat on the first day, there were enough run-scoring opportunities to exploit for those who avoided something foolish to put up a competitive score on a flat pitch. There was no such generosity from Australia the next day, as Cummins, Lyon and Scott Boland in particular combined to produce a bowling display of high skill and unerring accuracy, producing pitch maps that looked like a blob or two of paint with only a fleck or two out of place, rather than the smears delivered by England. Only Ollie Pope’s dismissal was truly frazzled. The rest were largely outdone.
From there, hard as England battled, the game was set. You can poke holes in some of the selections and the decisions. While Will Jacks has contributed two innings of substance, he has been unable to supply the control expected of a specialist finger-spinner, of which England had several to choose from before the series. Brook has copped plenty for his reverse-sweep on the fourth day, even though it’s now seen as a legitimate, routine scoring option, for some players less risky than a defensive prod, but Smith’s dismissal was harder to justify. Get through the new ball, and England would have a chance, with Lyon injured and the seamers straining. Instead, he opted to give it just 10 balls of respect, before four consecutive boundaries were followed by a hoick. Ricky Ponting called it “dopey” but there was calculation, you felt, Smith perhaps not backing his defence and reasoning that hitting the shine off could turn the game England’s way. But it might also be a calculation he misjudged.
But these are minor points in the major story. In the first two Tests, England fans could convince themselves that their side were architects of their own demise. Adelaide showed that however England play, whoever they pick, they will struggle to match Australia. This is as close as England have been. And it’s still not near to close enough.
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