The legendary England all-rounder Sir Ian Botham is quite disappointed as England failed to compete in the ongoing Ashes. Former England said that he’s a little embarrassed with how the visitors performed in the series down under.
Australia took only 80 minutes to bowl England out on the third morning of the Boxing Day Test as the hosts took an unassailable lead of 3-0 with two tests to go.
“I’m a little embarrassed, to be honest. To lose the Ashes in 12 days … I just think that England have lost their way. The performance today summed it up,” said the legendary all-rounder to Channel 7.
So far in the series, England has been hammered in all three departments and they were criticized heavily for making tactical and selection errors.
“It’s been a walk in the park for the Australians. It burns me to say that but they have completely outplayed England. Three or four of the England players can say ‘I gave it a go”, he added.
England failed to reach 300 in any of his 6 innings so far. Joe Root and Dawid Malan are the only batters from England who crossed the fifty-mark which tells you a thing about England’s misery in the series.
“I think people at home will be worried. It won’t do a great deal for ticket sales for the (English) summer. They will be saying now: ‘Ok, you’ve gone there, it’s been disastrous. You have a period of time now to sort this out,’” said Ian Botham who is famously known for his heroics in the Ashes 1981.
Botham also raised a few questions about the lack of preparation from England for this all-important series.
“You’ve got enough time to get a couple of players in from the Lions tour because we need to freshen it up, at the moment it’s stagnating. If you want do experiment with a couple of players, the series has gone, you might as well blood them. There’s a long way to go for England before they are competitive against this Australian team,” he opined.
The 4th Test match will begin on January 5 in Sydney as the hosts would be eying for a whitewash.
Also read Ashes 2021-22: Ricky Ponting Criticised England’s Team Selection Following 3-0 Drubbing