The China Mail - England's Ashes hopes hang by a thread as 'Bazball' backfires

But after just six days of cricket they are 2-0 down with three matches to play, with their "Bazball" style of ultra-attacking cricket under fire following crushing eight-wicket defeats in Perth and Brisbane.

AFP Sport looks at what has gone wrong for England so far.

Approach

Coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes injected fresh energy into an England side that had won just one of 17 Tests when they joined forces in 2022, urging players to play fearless cricket.

Yet Bazball has at times morphed from a guiding ethos into something nearing a dogma, with a self-defeating inflexibility at times.

Early success has been replaced by more modest results -- England have won 13 and lost 14 of their 29 matches in the World Test Championship (WTC) since June 2023.

A bristling Stokes last month labelled former players critical of England's approach as "has-beens", drawing a sharp rebuke.

"They are up their own backsides convinced that Test cricket has changed so much that only they know anything about the modern game," England multiple Ashes winner Geoffrey Boycott wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

Strategy

England managing director Rob Key has long believed in the need for sheer pace on typically hard Australian pitches.

"I don't care how many wickets you take," he said last year. "I want to know how hard you are running in, how hard you are hitting the pitch and are you able to sustain pace at 85 to 88 miles per hour?"

Veteran Australia fast bowler Mitchell Starc has shone for the home side, taking 18 wickets in the series so far.

But the surfaces in the opening two Tests have also rewarded traditional English-style seam bowling, with Australia's Michael Neser, averaging just above 80 mph, taking 5-42 in the second innings at Brisbane.

Preparation

McCullum was ridiculed following defeat in the pink-ball clash in Brisbane after saying England had trained too much and were over-prepared.

The tourists played only one pre-series warm-up fixture and wicketkeeper Jamie Smith, along with others, had never appeared in a pink-ball Test before the match in Brisbane.

England's lack of match practice came back to haunt them as they dropped five catches in the first innings.

Stokes' men also opted against having a tour game between Brisbane and next week's third Test in Adelaide.

"Nowhere in a million years has preparation been right," said former England captain and Ashes winner Michael Vaughan.

Discipline

England have been found wanting in basic disciplines, with batsmen taking unnecessary risks and bowlers unable to maintain an accurate line and length.

Stokes' team have also ignored repeated warnings about the dangers of trying to clear the bigger boundaries of Australian grounds and the need to minimise risk when facing Starc.

After their defeat in the second Test, Stokes demanded his players toughen up, insisting his England team is "not a place for weak men".

But it may be too late to turn the tide after Australia triumphed in Brisbane despite being without three senior bowlers -- skipper Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon -- who have more than 1,100 Test wickets between them.

Selection

England have indulged certain players to an extent previously unthinkable.

Opener Zak Crawley has been retained despite averaging a modest 33.7 in WTC matches since June 2023 in the belief he would come good in Australia, reflecting a unhealthy obsession with the Ashes to the exclusion of all else.

Fellow top-order batsman Ollie Pope averages a mere 31.8 over the same period, yet Jacob Bethell, the man next in line, has yet to make a first-class hundred.

"This lot aren't even afraid of getting dropped, which is why we see the same old failings, particularly in the batting," said an exasperated Boycott.

F.Brown--ThChM