Eight years ago, before a whitewash, the ECB nutritionist Chris Rosimus sent every venue in Australia a detailed 82-page document outlining England’s dietary demands. Even in the land of smashed avocado (I’m tucking into breakfast in a café in Bondi as I write) the locals were unimpressed. “The floppy hat guide for fine dining; cuisine — modern pretentious; price — exorbitant; whine — constantly,” sneered one.
Rosimus’s recipe book banished cricketers’ steak and beer reputation. Breakfast? Pumpkin seed and goji berry bars. Lunch? Piri-piri breaded tofu with tomato salsa. Dinner? Mung bean curry with spinach. Snacks? Almond and cinnamon flapjacks containing protein-based Maximuscle. At the time, there was talk of England’s meticulous attention to detail. To me, it was a sign they were disappearing up their own backsides.
Four years earlier, before winning the Ashes by a margin of 3-1 with three victories by an innings, they weren’t as fussy about what they ate, but they were meticulous about their build-up to the first Test. Three hard-fought first-class matches, of which two were won, during which they made scores of 243 for four, 240 for one and 523. Before the Gabba, they posted four first-class hundreds. They made 517 for one there in their second innings.
That is to wander into an Alice in Wonderland world now, because scheduling (the T20 World Cup), Covid-restrictions (a mandatory 14-day quarantine in Queensland) and weather (horrendous rain) determined that the preparation enjoyed by Andrew Strauss’s team in 2010-11 has not been possible. But it neatly illustrates the difference between two kinds of planning: the superficial and the essential.
The dietary booklet is an example of a “marginal gains” exercise that has been elevated to prominence in certain types of professional sport. Cycling, swimming and sprinting, where athletes are on the clock and the difference between gold and silver may be measured in fractions of seconds, demands a search for these incremental advantages that are said to aggregate into a winning effect.
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Cricket is not like that. For sure, cricketers are fitter, stronger and faster than ever. Their diet is better that it was. The days of six pints and a steak before a match have gone. These developments are a given, but the fundamental skills of the game matter much more, as does on-field decision-making, intelligence and strategy. Strauss’s team were confident but there were no shortcuts. Before the first Test, they were game-ready.
Which brings us to this England team. For two years now, we have been bombarded with noise about the Ashes. No Zoom has gone by without reference to it (the narrative is partly driven by the media too). Remember in India a year ago, when rest-and-rotation was implemented with a view to having players fresh, fit and firing for Brisbane eight months hence? All roads were leading to Vulture Street.
For the podcast series, Project Ashes, the BBC went behind the scenes. There was talk of being faster, fitter and leaner than before; of the “bandwidth of cricket” (whatever that means); of destigmatising the word “dropped”, and how to think about the effects of the absence of the Barmy Army. “Is this the best prepared squad ever to get to Australia?” Jonathan Agnew asked. “Given the constraints and the cards we have been dealt, we couldn’t have done much more,” replies Mo Bobat, the ECB’s performance director.
I’m not sneering. The detail is impressive and given far more attention than when I played. But the constraints and cards dealt, referenced by Bobat, mean that this was not the best prepared team to arrive at the Gabba, but one of the least. This felt like a makeshift team, having played no first-class cricket in advance, hoping it would be all right on the night.
The opening partnership? Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed had opened together in Test cricket just twice before Brisbane. Neither had played a first-class innings in Australia. The new-ball pairing? Chris Woakes and Ollie Robinson had never opened the bowling together in Test cricket before. Woakes is a fine and reliable performer, but it is inconceivable that, when they were visualising Brisbane, Chris Silverwood or Joe Root had Woakes in mind as the vanguard of their attack.
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Ben Stokes, the linchpin of the team, had not played since July. He had not batted in a first-class match since March and had bowled 17 overs in first-class cricket since then. His rustiness was evident and understandable. Jack Leach had been ignored by England all summer, only to be recalled for the Gabba. Two years of planning could not have constructed a slip cordon of Dawid Malan, Burns and Root. Players who had been backed for too long — the two Doms, Sibley and Bess — had been discarded. England arrived at the Gabba with a record of one victory in their previous nine Tests, hardly oven-ready.
Yet, while some criticisms are justified, a more realistic assessment would elicit sympathy and frustration rather than blame. Circumstance, bad luck — Covid, quarantine and rain — and the reality of the modern game, with schedules designed by greedy administrators that discourage rather than encourage excellence, mean elite performances are expected from players given little chance to produce them. There is sympathy for spectators, who are taken for granted too
James Anderson said he had never felt less prepared for a match. This from a great player on his fifth Ashes tour who has played more than 150 Tests. Now put yourselves in the shoes of a novice to Australia. No amount of breaded tofu or well-intentioned and detailed peripheral planning can make up for an absence of hard match practice. England will be better for the run, but they already have Everest to climb.
