The dust has settled on another Australian drubbing. The scoreline reads a familiar, grim 4-1. Bazball promised to tear up the old rulebook, but that aggressive dogma hit the brick wall of Australian pragmatism and fell apart.
The Pat Cummins-led hosts ruthlessly exposed England’s tactical naivety. Meanwhile, the tourists looked like a pub team trying to bludgeon their way out of a Test match. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) needs to pick up the axe and be brutal to salvage the future. Sentimentality usually ruins English selection. This time, ruthlessness must prevail.
Ashes Annihilation: 5 Players England Must Axe to Rise from the Rubble:
1. Ollie Pope
The vice-captaincy hung around Ollie Pope’s neck like a millstone until he finally cracked. Watching him bat at number three felt like watching a squirrel try to cross a motorway, not a professional cricketer. His nervous energy ruins the batting order’s rhythm.
Worse still, Pope’s technique falls apart under high-quality pace. He managed a lone century in the warm-ups, then vanished once the real fight started. England need a calm, steady hand at first drop. They cannot afford a skittish dasher who throws his wicket away.
2. Will Jacks
The management’s “vibes-based” selection reached its nadir in Perth. They never should have picked Will Jacks for that Test. He is not a frontline spinner who can hold an end, and he is not a top-six batter with the technique to survive Mitchell Starc.
It is tactical suicide to ask a batting all-rounder to be a specialist spinner in Australia. His bowling lacked bite, and his batting lacked grit. His inclusion sabotaged the balance of the whole side. The selectors must stop forcing round pegs into square holes just to chase a certain profile.
3. Zak Crawley
The management persists with Zak Crawley, but patience has to run out eventually. He has played dozens of matches and still averages in the low thirties. That record confirms a fundamental ceiling to his ability. He hits beautiful drives that make commentators purr, but he still nicks off the moment he looks settled.
England desperately needed someone to blunt the new ball and shield the middle order. Crawley only provided brief flashes of resistance. He is a luxury player, but that opening slot demands an iron will.
4. Ben Duckett
Ben Duckett’s refusal to leave the ball works on flat tracks in Pakistan. It is a disaster against the moving Kookaburra in Australia. Australian bowlers spotted his weakness outside off-stump immediately and hammered it.
He averaged a miserable 20 across the series, usually caught in the cordon trying to slash at balls he should have ignored. An opener who cannot trust his defence is just a walking wicket. England need an opener who hates losing his wicket more than he loves his strike rate.
READ MORE: 5 Undeniable Reasons Pat Cummins Has Quietly Eclipsed Every Other Modern Legend
5. Mark Wood
This is a tough call, but Mark Wood’s body is calling the shots now. When he broke down after just one Test in Perth, he undermined England’s plans to fight fire with fire. You cannot build an attack around a spearhead who only plays one game in four.
Wood is 36 now. His muscles can no longer produce that explosive pace required at this level. England should thank him for his service and turn their gaze to the future. It is time to blood younger, tougher bowlers like Josh Tongue and Brydon Carse. They have shown they can handle the hard yards.
Rebuilding means clearing out the dead wood. England must drop these five players to build a team that cares more about grit than rhetoric. Performance has to trump potential. The next Ashes series is already looming on the horizon. England must start preparing today by admitting the current way is not working.
