Overhyped and underprepared - that is the grim reality of England's Ashes defeat
Australia sealed an unassailable 3-0 lead in Adelaide to leave England sliding towards another whitewash
ADELAIDE OVAL — They claimed to be over-prepared. They were definitely overhyped. Now their hopes in the most eagerly-anticipated Ashes series for a generation are just over.
It’s taken 11 days of cricket for the Bazball project to unravel. It had been three-and-a-half years in the making and, for the last two, almost exclusively geared towards a series that coach Brendon McCullum had claimed was “the biggest of all our lives”.
It’s a shame neither him nor managing director Rob Key treated it as such.
The whole approach of England’s management towards this series has been arrogant, with the lack of preparation suggesting they failed to treat the pressure-cooker of an Ashes tour with the respect it deserved.
💬 "That dream that we came here with is now over – everyone is hurting and quite emotional about it."
— Cricket on TNT Sports (@cricketontnt) December 21, 2025
Ben Stokes speaks after England's Ashes defeat to Australia.
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McCullum saying his team were “over-prepared” after defeat in the second Test in Brisbane will be the epitaph of this tour.
Back in August, Richard Thompson, the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chair, defended the lack of warm-up matches by claiming the 50-over series in New Zealand that preceded the Ashes would be “good preparation”. That statement makes you wonder about the competence of those at the very top.
Minimal preparation had worked previously, with England winning the first Test of every away series under McCullum and captain Ben Stokes before this.
But Australia is a very different beast from anywhere else.
That was illustrated by the fact so many of this group – and 11 had never experienced an away Ashes before – found the intensity too much, both on the field and the constant media scrutiny off it.
Stokes admitted as much after going 2-0 down in Brisbane when he spoke about the changing room being no place for “weak men”.
Like their bosses, England’s players have also been accused of being arrogant. They are not. In fact, they are Goodfellas to a man.
But the famous line delivered by Tommy Devito, played by Joe Pesci, to Henry Hill in the Martin Scorsese mob film could equally apply to a team that’s lost leaders like Jonny Bairstow, Stuart Broad and James Anderson in recent years.
“I wonder about you sometimes,” Devito says to Ray Liotta’s Hill. “You may fold under questioning.”
In this series, England have folded like a cheap suit against an Australia team who have interrogated every facet of their character, skill and technique.
On the final day here, England, who had resumed on 207 for six in pursuit of a world-record target of 435, resisted with the bat for three hours and one minute of play before they were finally put out of their misery. The fight came way too late.
Jamie Smith is OUT ❌
— Cricket on TNT Sports (@cricketontnt) December 21, 2025
He goes for a fifth successive boundary but gets out in the process…
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This isn’t the first time England have wilted under pressure in the Bazball era.
There have been plenty of miraculous results – the Heist of Hyderabad, those 2023 Ashes wins at Headingley and The Oval, the 3-0 series victory in Pakistan and plenty of thrilling chases.
But for every miracle, there’s been a match they’ve thrown away. Last summer’s final Test against India at The Oval, when they lost by six runs having been 301 for three chasing 374, is a classic of the genre. Not to mention the first two Tests of the 2023 Ashes.
England’s record since then speaks volumes – played 26, won 12, lost 13, drawn one.
Bazball was exactly what an England team who had won one Test in 17 needed back in the summer of 2022. They were liberated and for 18 months it provided some enthralling cricket.
Encouraging greater freedom of expression and taking the pressure off the players was admirable. But after initial success, the failure to evolve and become more adaptable has made this England team one-dimensional and predictable.
The warning signs were there last year in India, where they lost 4-1, and in Pakistan last winter, where after going 1-0 up, England lost the final two Tests on sharply turning pitches.
Losing in Australia is nothing new. In nine of the past 10 Ashes tours England have now been 3-0 down after three Tests.
Yet this time was meant to be different. That’s the point. Being competitive – and that meant winning at least one of the first three Tests – was the minimum requirement. The hope was for much more. Any victory in the remaining two Tests will be meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe we were all intoxicated by Bazball. It’s an approach that has re-energised the interest in Test cricket in England. But in the harshest of environments it has wilted.
In Adelaide, the music has stopped. Bazball has died. There will be a genuine sense of loss in English cricket, especially as it is a concept that has been bought into by the wider game, with McCullum and Stokes even outlining their philosophy to all 18 county directors of cricket in 2023.
It means the impact of this Ashes defeat threatens to be more damaging than any this century.
The ECB now need to be careful how they handle this. English cricket cannot go back to the old ways. The spirit of Bazball and that accent on freedom of expression needs to remain. That means keeping Stokes as captain until at least the 2027 home Ashes.
But this tour must be the end of the road for McCullum. Whoever replaces him needs to build on what he started but come up with something more sustainable.
It won’t be easy but that’s the game now. Adapt or die.