England’s dignity on the line

An Ashes tour that began with high hopes of taking home the pot has been reduced to a desperate bid to salvage some last vestiges of dignity as England head into one of the great occasions of the sporting calendar, the Boxing Day Test.
The tourists have suffered savagely since meekly surrendering the series to a makeshift Australia outfit with a third straight defeat on Sunday in Adelaide, extending their winless streak in Australia to 18 Tests since January 2011.
No doubt there will be post-mortems on preparation, team selection, player behavior and skill execution, but England still have two dead games to negotiate before they are allowed to go home.
Team manager Rob Key — whose jobs, like those of coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes, will be on the line if England succumb to a 5-0 whitewash — reckons the tourists were playing at around 20% of their skill level in Australia.
That leaves plenty of room for improvement at the Melbourne Cricket Ground from Friday, when the traditional celebratory crowd will fill the Australian cricket cave very much.
Despite his concern for the mental health of his players amid media allegations of excessive drinking during a break between the second and third Tests, Stokes said his goal in Melbourne and Sydney was clear.
“This was nowhere near the plan (but) I’m very, very determined to go out and win the remaining two games,” he told reporters at the MCG on Wednesday.
“When you know you can look back on those first three games and you know you haven’t been able to sustain the quality of cricket for a long time, generally you’re going to end up on the wrong side of the result.
“(But) I’m very determined to leave Australia with something positive to look back on.”
Australia, meanwhile, still have a handful of selection issues to sort out with skipper Pat Cummins returning to rehabilitate his back now the series is settled and spinner Nathan Lyon sidelined for a couple of months after hamstring surgery.
The home side have faced such challenges since the start of the series, however, and will hardly see them as insurmountable, given that every selection bet they have taken or been forced to play has almost paid off.
Australian players rejoice in the triumph of “Ronball” – a funny tribute to their phlegmatic coach Andrew McDonald and a parody of McCullum’s “Bazball”.
MacDonald, in a very relaxed press conference on Tuesday, did, if only briefly, give an opinion on how England have been playing in the series so far.
“We’ve been a little surprised at times,” he said.
“The way we’ve seen them play, with what they’ve given at certain times, it’s surprised us. We can speculate around that, but that’s their problem, not ours.”

Anxious Stokes
An emotional England captain Ben Stokes on Wednesday said the mental wellbeing of his players was his main priority for the final two matches of the Ashes series.
England’s players have been heavily criticized since Australia wrapped up an 82-run victory in the third Test in Adelaide on Sunday to take an unassailable 3-0 series lead and retain the trophy.
Media and social media reports of some players adopting a “Stag Party” attitude on a trip to the Queensland resort of Noosa between the second and third Tests have only added to that weight of pressure.
Team manager Rob Key on Tuesday promised to look into reports of excessive drinking in Noosa and Stokes said it all left him with a big job to do in his role as players’ protector.
“With the reports and everything going around at the moment, my main concern at the moment is my players,” he told reporters at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where the fourth Test starts on Friday.
“How I handle this moment right now is the most important thing for me. The well-being of everyone in there, and possibly some individuals, is the most important thing to me right now.
“These things are something I have first-hand experience of, how it can affect people. And my role as England captain is to protect my players as much as I can.
“I will always protect my players as much as I can. And here, at the moment, that is my main job as England captain.”
Stokes has been open about the mental health issues he faced during his career and took a long break from cricket in 2021 to focus on his wellbeing.