Former Australia captain Tim Paine feels England is thinking too highly about their cricket in their head, but in reality, they are far from being a fantastic Test side. Since Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum took over the leadership roles a couple of years ago, England’s Test cricket flourished for some time before falling flat during the home Ashes and away India tour.
With local media hyping their ultra-attacking style of play, claiming it to have changed how Test cricket is played, Paine said England is an average team, and they must put their heads around it.
Meanwhile, the ECB released a documentary on the 2023 Ashes, a bittersweet series for both teams (ended in a 2-2 draw). In one of the episodes, Captain Ben Stokes gave a speech after the drawn fourth Test (at Old Trafford), wherein he referred to England’s newest approach as something that will ‘live forever in the memory of people who were lucky enough to witness us play cricket.’
“Everything we’ve done up until now isn’t going to stop because we haven’t managed to win the urn back. The reward for our work isn’t what we get but what we become, and what we have managed to do is we’ve managed to become a sports team that will live forever in the memory of people who were lucky enough to witness us play cricket.
“I know it’s going to be a bit flat, I know it’s going to hurt that we go into the next game not being able to get the urn back, but what we have done is something a lot bigger than any Ashes trophy could ever signify for this team: be the team that everybody will always remember,” Stokes said to his teammates after rain spoiled England’s chances of winning the fourth Test.
Although fans, several pundits and opposition, mainly Australia, thrashed this comment on social media, saying Stokes went a bit too far with this, Paine thinks Stokes’ comment was blown out of proportion.
“I think it was taken slightly out of context because he was talking in a changing room, and it was a bigger speech, so I will say that,” Paine said.
Average Cricket Team
Though this new-age England Test Team tasted success both home and away, Paine feels if they think they have done anything differently and helped make this format exciting in any way, they haven’t.
“However, it’s just this continued belief that they’re completely changing the game and they’re doing this amazing stuff, and everyone’s going to remember it … they’re not.
“You’re coming dead last in the World Test Championship. You’re not going to be a team that everyone remembers watching, and you’re not doing anything outrageously good that we haven’t seen before.
“You’re an average cricket team. You are, at the moment, a below-average cricket team, and I think they need to get their head around that a little bit,” Paine noted while talking on one of SEN Tassie Breakfast episodes.
(With inputs from agencies)