Test cricket’s next challenge: how to avoid another lopsided Ashes series | Geoff Lemon

Given the desert of competitiveness in recent times it is reasonable to ask what is the point of England visiting Australia

Player ratings for Australia’s ruthless rout of England

On what was supposed to be the day after the Hobart Test, all was quiet. England had wrapped up an epochally anaemic Ashes defeat leaving enough spare days to squeeze in an embarrassing visit from police to the world’s meekest sunrise rager, telling off cricketers who had been drinking in their whites for longer than they had been required to play in them. The constabulary arrived to extinguish a cigar sparked by England staffer Graham Thorpe, who then decided to video the players present.

It ended up at a newspaper within a day. As batting coach of a team that had just been bowled out for 147, 192, 185, 68, 188 and 124, among other embarrassments, you for one thing might be short cigar-worthy moments, and for another might be inclined to keep your head down.

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