Booze, beach, beaten - how England lost the Ashes
BBC Sport chief cricket reporter Stephan Shemilt reveals the inside story of England's Ashes defeat in Australia on and off the pitch.
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By
Chief Cricket Reporter in Australia
It's been a shocker, hasn't it?
England's latest humiliation down under will be remembered as their worst in recent times not only for its rapid nature, but also because this was supposed to be an opportunity to regain the Ashes from a weakened Australia.
This is how England gave themselves no chance, from selection and preparation, to booze and the beach in Noosa.
Seeds sown long ago
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Image caption,
Mark Wood's Ashes series lasted just 11 overs before he flew back to the UK
Hindsight makes experts of us all, but the failings of this tour began long ago.
It was a missed opportunity not to trial a genuine opener when Zak Crawley got injured in the summer of 2024, instead asking Dan Lawrence to do a job for which he is not suited. Lawrence has not been seen since.
If Jordan Cox's broken thumb in New Zealand 12 months ago was unfortunate - Cox could have been a badly needed reserve keeper in Australia - then the decision to send Mark Wood to the Champions Trophy proved immeasurably costly.
England so badly wanted pace on this tour, then managed to injure their fastest bowler in a tournament they were never going to win.
Assistant coach Paul Collingwood disappeared at the beginning of the home summer and has not been replaced, and there was no clarity on the identity of England's fast-bowling coach for this tour right up to the last minute.
Chris Woakes' dislocated shoulder effectively ruled him out of the Ashes, but there were still two other players in England's squad for the last Test against India that did not make it to Australia: Jamie Overton and Liam Dawson.
Overton took a break from red-ball cricket after using up a spot at The Oval which could have gone to Matthew Potts, Matthew Fisher or Sam Cook. Dawson - or any other frontline spinner - would have been pragmatic cover in Australia for Shoaib Bashir, whose form was an accident waiting to happen.
Even the announcement of the Ashes squad was an anticlimactic foreshadowing of things to come.
Whereas the British & Irish Lions unveiled their Australian tour squad in front of 2,000 fans at the O2 in London, England hustled out their team on a press release with no notice a couple of hours after the death of legendary umpire Dickie Bird was announced.
When it came, the 12-month hokey-cokey over Ollie Pope's place continued as he was replaced as vice-captain, adding further fuel to a Jacob Bethell debate that is still to be settled.
Director of cricket Rob Key did not speak to explain the squad until a full 24 hours later, at which point he ended Woakes' international career, taking the moment away from the man himself.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail
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England's warm-up against their own Lions team in Lilac Hill was a world away from what they encountered in the first Test at Perth Stadium
For all the criticism of England's pre-series plans in Australia, the immovable obstacle to more warm-up matches was a white-ball tour of New Zealand that had been in the diary for years.
Despite England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Richard Thompson claiming the series against the Black Caps was strong Ashes preparation, England lost three of four completed matches, effectively played at the end of the New Zealand winter.
England ultimately got the Ashes warm-up they wanted - an intra-squad match against the England Lions. However, there is evidence of buyer's remorse through their opening of negotiations with Cricket Australia over an agreement to guarantee better preparation on future Ashes tours.
If there was an offer of a match against a state team or Australia A, it was too close to the tour of New Zealand for England to make it work. England insist they asked for time at the Waca, only to be told the ground was not available. When England made the request is not clear. The Barmy Army managed to book a game there.
The Lilac Hill conditions for the warm-up match were slow and low, far removed from the pace and bounce of Perth Stadium.
The overall attitude was laid back. England team analyst Rupert Lewis donned whites to run the drinks and music played from the dressing rooms throughout the three days. Harry Brook's shots demonstrated his disdain for the exercise.
As the Lions players not involved were sent on laps of the park as part of a tough fitness programme, Bashir's bowling was hammered by his own team-mates and Wood had to go for a scan on his hamstring eight overs into his comeback.
A hint of farce came when the scorecard malfunctioned, showing Wood to be batting despite being in hospital at the time.
Perhaps the most memorable moment of the Lilac Hill week came before a ball was bowled, when captain Ben Stokes described critics of England's plans as "has-beens". It was a slip of the tongue, but one that could have been corrected immediately.
Two down in six days
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Ben Stokes said his dressing room was "no place for weak men" after the second Test defeat in Brisbane
England dealt well with the build-up to the first Test. Josh Tongue and Jamie Smith swatted away questions about golf, stumpings and moral victories.
Dominant at lunch on day two in Perth, England lost before stumps on the same day.
Stokes said he was shell-shocked in some tetchy post-match media interactions, comments that were used against the captain as England lost the PR battle in the days after the Test.
England were followed by photographers to golf courses and even an aquarium, while housing the squad in a hotel attached to a casino was probably a mistake. Some of the group developed a penchant for an Australian brand of takeaway frozen yoghurt.
The decision not to send more players to the Lions' day-night game against a Prime Minister's XI in Canberra was put down to the difference in conditions between the capital and Brisbane.
However, a week's worth of radio silence did not help the tourists. Former Australia pace bowler Mitchell Johnson accused them of being "arrogant".
England instead opted for five days of training in Brisbane, a workload that head coach Brendon McCullum would later claim left his team "overprepared" for the second Test.
When Stokes finally broke the media blackout, he clarified the "has-beens" comment and responded to Johnson by saying England could be called "rubbish", rather than arrogant.
As the build-up to the Test continued, Stokes and Pope had to respond to pictures of the captain, Wood and Smith riding e-scooters without helmets – an offence punishable by a fine under Queensland law.
On the field, Root's long-awaited first hundred in Australia was rendered useless by some awful shots by his team-mates and England missed five catches.
Following yet another defeat at the Gabba, Stokes said his dressing room is "no place for weak men" - words that could come back later in the tour.
On the beach
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Image caption,
Ben Stokes poses with Archie and Bretz, presenters on Sunshine Coast radio station MixFM
England said their four nights in the beach resort of Noosa had been scheduled for more than a year, which possibly leaves it as one of the best-planned parts of the tour.
Some used it in the spirit it was intended. Root, for example, had accommodation with his family away from the main drag and was never spotted near a bar. It was curious that more family members were not present for what was billed as a break from the Ashes.
For others, it was a glorified stag do. Some members of the team followed two days of drinking in Brisbane with four more in Noosa - six in total, as many days as there had been of Test cricket at this point in the tour.
The England party was hardly inconspicuous, drinking by the side of the road, with plenty wearing traditional Akubra hats that became the uniform of the holiday.
There was a three-line whip issued to attend a kick-about on the beach, where England were sledged by local radio DJs and mingled with other holidaymakers.
Stokes was seen out running, while on another occasion strength and conditioning coach Pete Sim invited the entire group for a run along the coast at 07:45am. Smith, Bashir and Tongue were the only players to turn out.
At the end of the trip, a member of the England security staff was accused of a physical confrontation with a cameraman from TV network Seven following a back-and-forth in Brisbane airport.
Despite the gags and attention from Australian media about their time on the beach, England probably put in their best performance of a bad bunch in the Test after their jollies in Noosa.
All over in Adelaide
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This is the fourth successive Ashes tour in which England have lost the first three Tests
By the third Test, England's messaging had become mixed. Stokes talked of "enjoying the pressure", despite actively looking to remove pressure from his team over the previous three years.
Brook said England had not spoken about cricket in Noosa, whereas Stokes admitted there had been "raw" conversations. Crawley would later claim not to know about the "weak men" comments.
Perhaps aware fielding had let them down, England engaged in some rare fielding drills.
At an Adelaide ground renowned for helping spinners, England left out Bashir, a decision explained by the need for Will Jacks' batting at number eight. Assistant coach Jeetan Patel insisted Bashir had not become "unselectable".
After putting so much emphasis on high pace, England were left with part-time spinner Jacks bowling more overs than anyone else in the match.
Outwardly, England remained relaxed. McCullum's walk to the Adelaide Oval twice passed through BBC Radio 5 live shows being broadcast from outside the team hotel. Patel left a news conference with the words: "Enjoy your evening. Have a pint, because I will be."
England showed some overdue fight and even took the Test into the final day, but the Ashes were lost in 11 days of cricket. It doesn't feel like the squad will fall apart, even if 5-0 seems inevitable.