OPINION
Dobell take
England’s Ashes ‘prep’ is an accident waiting to happen
George Dobell
Andrew Strauss bats and Luke Ronchi keeps wicket in England’s first 2010/11 Ashes tour game, at Perth in November 2010
TOM SHAW/BEN HOSKINS/GETTY IMAGES. COURTESY SACA
Like preparing for an Arctic trek by having an ice-lolly, England’s pre-Ashes planning feels somewhat inadequate.
England will arrive in Australia in time for just one warm-up match. And that will be a three-day game against England Lions. It probably won’t have first-class status, to enable the teams to substitute players in and out as requirements demand.
But it’s worse than that. Before the Lions game, England are due to play three ODIs and three T20Is in New Zealand. So the all-format players involved – and there are lots of those – will be preparing with a different ball, under lights, in a different country. And the Test players will have to content themselves with nets.
If England lose the Ashes, nobody is going to say, ‘Yeah, but we won the Depend Adult Undergarment ODI Series in New Zealand’