England need at the very least a performance this week or, to put it bluntly, they are going to start losing fans.
I am all for mixing business with pleasure, an ethos expressed no more successfully than on the 1986/87 tour. But the difference then was that Gatting, Gower, Botham, Broad etc. were men, capable of sinking a few jars without losing sight of the reason they were there. What on earth would Eric Clapton and Elton John find to talk to some of the current crop about?
There seems to be a generation of player - those who came into the game after the likes of Cook and Anderson - who are to all intents and purposes still boys, and who appear to believe they are on some sort of off-season jolly. Perhaps it’s just me but I can also see a movement from men to boys in the Aussie camp, when I think of the likes of McGrath, Waugh and Gilchrist who simply commanded respect, including (or even particularly) from their opponents. Or perhaps I’m just getting old. But at least the Aussies seem to know how to behave off the pitch.
I have no wish to get all Mary Whitehouse about it all, but the fact is these players are playing for the fans who’ve saved for years to travel to Australia and the fans back home who have ruined their sleeping arrangements to follow the tour, only to endure two months of sledging from the token office convict.
They stopped their best player from boarding the plane, they introduced a midnight curfew, and still certain players don’t seem to understand why they are in Australia. I personally was delighted by Bayliss’ response the other day to the journalist who asked “What can you do now?” If “Perhaps think about who makes the team” is not a black and white answer for some of these players, then there really is no getting through to them.
There are some real solid pros in this England team. But I do wonder whether it isn’t time for English cricket to introduce an All Blacks-style ‘no dick heads’ rule. It didn’t seem to hurt them.
I can deal with 0-5 against the great team of Warne and McGrath. I could just about do the same when Mitchell Johnson started bowling rockets in 2013. There are times in sport where you just have to lift your hands up and say well played. But there is no, absolutely no, excuse for England getting beat 5-0 by this Australia side.
Over to you lads.