Michael Vaughan who won the most memorable Ashes series in 2005 says they might’ve laughed at age profile of Australian squad at the outset of the 2025 series. But the Aussie system has delivered with its selections, rewarding Grade cricket performances.
Writing for The Telegraph, Vaughan said England needed to reconsider how they picked teams, saying, “Right now, England are the opposite of Australia.”
Admitting that English cricket fraternity had joked about Australia’s older age profile at the outset, he said they had been proven wrong. “We had a laugh at the age profile of Australia’s team, and there are some cracks that England have failed to open up. But the Australian system has always been about earning the right,” Vaughan wrote. High store was set on performances in the Sheffield Shield, he reminded.
“To get in the state team, you need to perform in grade cricket on a Saturday. The whole system is connected in a way ours just is not, top to bottom. Sam Konstas was an outlier last year, almost an England-style selection, but they seem to have learnt from it,” he recalled of the 21-year-old handed a debut too soon, and then packed off back to grade cricket.
“Compare that to Jake Weatherald. At 31, he has been around the block and earned the right. He has been a hardened cricketer over 10 years. I do not think we would even consider looking at someone like him in English cricket. But he just looks ready,” Vaughan noted. The opener scored 72 in the first innings comingbin for Usman Khawaja, and was 17 unbeaten in the second as Australia sauntered to a win.
“In English cricket, we gift our players a lot quickly,” he wrote, adding ‘weak men’ were making these decisions doling out debuts. “Until English cricket addresses all this, and remembers that Test cricket is a tough game that does not allow for shortcuts, the mediocrity will continue. You hear suggestions of weak men. That is what our system has created.”
Not playing warmup ganes, and prioritising training over these, was also a problem as per Vaughan.
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Vaughan critiqued the Bazball cult writing: “The team are told how good they are, and backed constantly, whether they play well or not. English cricket is reaping what it has sown.”
He also found it jarring that England’s younger players were not being exposed to real-game environments enough, and agreed slantways with McCullum that they “trained too hard” – instead of playing games.
“I do not understand why we don’t want them playing all the time, even if the opposition are not that good. Nets are fine but nothing beats going to bed at night with a score or a few wickets. It’s a great feeling. That is why I actually thought there was something in what Brendon McCullum said about England training too much before the Test. Training and not playing is just another example of a no-consequence environment. You never know if you are out or not in the nets, and you face another ball anyway,” Vaughan wrote.