England decide NOT to give two-day Ashes flops pink-ball practice match - despite the Brisbane Test still being 10 days away!
Not a single member of the England team who lost the first Ashes Test inside two days will fly to Canberra this weekend for a pink-ball practice match, after the management opted to keep the players together ahead of the crucial second Test at Brisbane.
Ben Stokes’s side had faced calls to use the two-day game under floodlights against a Prime Minister’s XI as practice for the Gabba, who are hosting the only pink-ball Test of the series.
Instead, only batsman Jacob Bethell and seamers Matthew Potts and Josh Tongue – full members of the Ashes squad, but passed over for selection at Perth – will be rerouted to the Australian capital.
And if England pick an unchanged team for the Brisbane Test, starting on December 4, it means none of their XI will have had recent exposure in match conditions to the swinging pink ball under lights.
Australia have won 13 of their 14 floodlit Tests, including three out of three against England.
After the first Test meltdown on Saturday evening, head coach Brendon McCullum emphasised the importance of ensuring ‘camaraderie is tight and morale doesn’t drop’, and hinted that his preference would be to keep the first-choice team together before Brisbane.
England have passed up the opportunity to give their first-choice Ashes stars some match practice ahead of the second Test in Brisbane
England suffered a harrowing defeat inside two days in Perth after two dismal batting displays
England have lost five of their seven pink-ball Tests (pictured Australia's Jhye Richardson (No 60) celebrates the wicket of Jos Buttler in the 2021 Ashes pink-ball Test at Adelaide)
But others have wondered whether the likes of Zak Crawley and Joe Root, who made three ducks between them at Perth and faced a total of 29 balls, wouldn’t benefit from more time in the middle.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan tweeted: ‘This England management do it their own way. That’s fine.
'I would personally have loved to see them all playing a pink-ball two-day game to prepare for a pink-ball Test.’
And ex-wicketkeeper Jack Russell was equally unimpressed: ‘Don’t understand why you wouldn’t use the day/night match as prep for a day/night Test?????’
