To restore their battered morale, Ben Stokes and his men hit Noosa, a beach on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast in between the Brisbane and Adelaide Tests. But shadows of defeat followed them to their four-day sandy retreat. Welcoming them on the beach were banners that read, “For sale, Moral Victories… : “Bazballers anonymous, free counselling.
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Some of England’s cricketers saw the funny side of it. Stokes even posed for pictures with them. Australia’s tabloid newspapers readily splashed pictures of them beach warming with headlines like “On back foot, England bails to the beach”, “Life’s a beach, even for the sinking Poms,” “Sun’s out, runs out”. The West Australian wrote a piece wherein it read: “After gallivanting around golf courses in Perth and joyriding without helmets on E-scooters in Brisbane, England favoured rest and relaxation for their latest mid-series break.” The headline of another piece went: “‘Overprepared’: fails pub test,” a jab at Brendon McCullum’s explanation for the defeat at the Gabba that “the players may have overtrained”.
Australia cricketer Alex Carey empathised with them. “It’s a pretty big series – there is a lot of time in between games,” Carey said. “For the Australian cricket team, we get to go home for a few days and be with the families. “For touring parties, you’ve got to find time to fill in those little windows, and Noosa’s not too far from Brisbane. The Ashes is a very hotly contested contest and you don’t want to be thinking cricket every single day of the tour. If you do have a little break, it’s probably not a bad time to refresh the batteries. Our boys played a bit of golf. I’m probably watching Netflix or taking the fishing rod away if I can. It’s not new stuff that the English guys are doing, having a little break.” he added.
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McCullum had reasoned his players’ decision to hit Noosa. “We have got a couple of days in Noosa, which will be good to spend a couple of days casually, and let the dust settle on what has been a pretty intense couple of weeks and start to plot and plan our way back into the series,,” he said last Sunday.
Some of England’s former players and pundits are not amused. “I don’t think I’d be going to Noosa. I’m a bit old-school, it’d be naughty boy nets,” David Lloyd told BBC Sport. “There are definite consequences to this. There always has been, there always will be. There will be consequences and those start with those in charge.” Ex-England captain Nasser Hussain wrote in The Athletic: “I can’t understand England’s schedule for the week ahead. “[They] will be going into the third Test without playing a single warm-up game against Australian opposition, and that is beyond me.”