With England winning the Boxing Day Melbourne Test in the Ashes by four wickets against Australia, it was only the first time since 2011 that England managed a win in a Test in Australia. With this, the England side now trails the Ashes 1-3 going into the fifth and final Test at Sydney Cricket Ground as well. And, former England captain Michael Vaughan has said that England’s win at Melbourne was a ‘complete lottery’ and believes England need to win a tough match in Australia.
“I think it’s a massive game for England (in Sydney). It’s nice to win a game of cricket, but let’s be honest, it was a complete lottery in Melbourne. It wasn’t a proper game of Test match cricket. For the future and for this management in particular, they need to win a strong game of cricket here … that’s not a two-dayer,” Vaughan told The Sydney Morning Herald.
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Since Brendon McCullum took over as the head coach of the England Test team, the team has won 25 Test matches out of 44 as well. With the side scoring 14 Test wins in the first 19 Tests under McCullum, the results have become different in the last two years, with the team losing in 13 Tests and winning 11 Tests. And, Vaughan believes that England would need a solid performance at Sydney as well.
“For this management to carry on, the likes of Ben (Stokes) and Baz (Brendon McCullum) – I’m pretty sure they will carry on – but I think they need a good week for that to be absolutely rock solid. There’s a huge appetite within the group to keep [McCullum] on. But fundamentally, if they get pummelled in Sydney, there needs to be some honest conversations,” he added.
“I think chopping and changing is not necessarily the right thing for English cricket. Whatever happens at the end of this tour, they’ve got to accept that they got a lot of things wrong. If they’re going to be so stubborn to think that they were a bit unlucky, or things didn’t quite go the way they wanted … Well, we have a problem going forward. The key is maturity and that’s the one thing that I think this team can be a lot better at, in terms of the way they play and talk. If they can accept that, I have no problem with the management staying the same,” Michael Vaughan concluded.
