{"id":45498,"date":"2025-12-21T06:42:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T06:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/?p=45498"},"modified":"2025-12-21T06:42:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T06:42:48","slug":"c79xynw7e39oat_mediumrssat_campaignrss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/2025\/12\/21\/c79xynw7e39oat_mediumrssat_campaignrss\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashes 2025-26: How England lost latest Ashes series down under in just 11 days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hindsight makes experts of us all, but the failings of this tour began long ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was a missed opportunity not to trial a genuine opener when Zak Crawley got injured in the summer of 2024, instead asking Dan Lawrence to do a job for which he is not suited. Lawrence has not been seen since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If Jordan Cox&#8217;s broken thumb in New Zealand 12 months ago was unfortunate \u2013 Cox could have been a badly needed reserve keeper in Australia \u2013 then the decision to send Mark Wood to the Champions Trophy proved immeasurably costly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">England so badly wanted pace on this tour, then managed to injure their fastest bowler in a tournament they were never going to win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Assistant coach Paul Collingwood disappeared at the beginning of the home summer and has not been replaced, and there was no clarity on the identity of England&#8217;s fast-bowling coach for this tour right up to the last minute.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Chris Woakes&#8217; dislocated shoulder effectively ruled him out of the Ashes, but there were still two other players in England&#8217;s squad for the last Test against India that did not make it to Australia: Jamie Overton and Liam Dawson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Overton took a break from red-ball cricket after using up a spot at The Oval which could have gone to Matthew Potts, Matthew Fisher or Sam Cook. Dawson &#8211; or any other frontline spinner \u2013 would have been pragmatic cover in Australia for Shoaib Bashir, whose form was an accident waiting to happen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Even the announcement of the Ashes squad was an anticlimactic foreshadowing of things to come.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Whereas the British &amp; Irish Lions unveiled their Australian tour squad in front of 2,000 fans at the O2 in London, England hustled out their team on a press release with no notice a couple of hours after the death of legendary umpire Dickie Bird was announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When it came, the 12-month hokey-cokey over Ollie Pope&#8217;s place continued as he was replaced as vice-captain, adding further fuel to a Jacob Bethell debate that is still to be settled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Director of cricket Rob Key did not speak to explain the squad until a full 24 hours later, at which point he ended Woakes&#8217; international career, taking the moment away from the man himself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n#Ashes #England #lost #latest #Ashes #series #days<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hindsight makes experts of us all, but the failings of this tour began long ago. It was a missed opportunity&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mzansi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45500,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45498\/revisions\/45500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}