Former England cricketer Geoffrey Boycott has hammered the Ben Stokes side, which has been at the receiving end of things at the ongoing Ashes 2025-26 series, having lost the first two Tests one-sidedly.
Stokes claimed that England had a blueprint for the Ashes tour Down Under, while head coach Brendon McCullum remarked that his team was ‘overprepared’ for this high-octane series. Boycott quashed all those claims, calling it bull**** and saying nothing can be believed from Stokes or his team.
“Ben Stokes said England had a blueprint. They had been planning this tour for four years and know what they are doing. What a load of bulls—,” Boycott wrote in his column for The Telegraph.
“We can’t believe anything Ben or his team say. None of them want to listen to anyone outside of their own camp. They are up their own backsides convinced that Test cricket has changed so much that only they know anything about the modern game.
Boycott pointed out that this England team, under Stokes and McCullum, does not listen to anyone, and there is no one to correct them.
“They won’t have it, but there is no substitute for competitive match cricket. That is where you find out what length to bowl on Australian pitches, what shots to use best on their surfaces and more importantly what not to do. One of the problems with this squad is it appears nobody tells them off or sits them down and discusses what they could or should have done differently,” wrote Boycott.
“All we ever hear from the captain is attack and from the coach keep the faith. After some of those dismissals my Yorkshire captain Brian Close would have stood at the top of the pavilion steps with steam coming out of his ears waiting to give you a ‘knuckle sandwich’,” he added.
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After putting on 334 on board in the first innings of the Pink Ball fixture at the Gabba, England bowlers let Australia put up a massive 511 on the board. In the second innings, all England were playing the catch-up game and could only manage to score 241, giving the home team a 65-run target.
‘Rubbish bowling’
Boycott also called England’s bowling rubbish in the first innings. “I thought our first innings bowling was rubbish. Far too short with more than 250 runs scored in the third man and fine leg area. There were the usual thick edges that luckily went down and wide of the slip cordon but all the Aussie batsmen were pulling, hooking and uppercutting balls over the slips or belting it off the back foot through square cover. When England pitched it up they bowled easy half volleys,” he wrote.
Australia chased the total in just 10 overs, taking a 2-0 lead in the five-match Ashes series. The third Test will be played in Adelaide.