I seriously wonder why the coaches are being paid so much (and the players) if they are not putting the batsmen up against seam, swing and spinning conditions endlessly. They seem to bat on flat tracks in the nets using Kookaburra balls and wonder why they have no idea when a Pom swings the Dukes ball. There's this mantra of "play your natural game" which involves flashing outside off stump at anything and everything. How's that working out? Tour after tour they turn up in England expecting to win, play a couple of county games against third grade opposition then go into the Tests underdone. In the old days they'd spend a good month over there getting used to the light, the pitches, the balls, the swing etc before they played the first Test. Of course no one has the time now but I'm sure we'd start seeing better results. The sides of the 90s and early 2000s could get away with it because they were so good and England was pretty poor. However since 2005 Australia has lost 10 Tests (including this one) to 3. It's all papered over by the two 5-0 whitewashes at home (in between we got flogged 3-1 at home too).
There've been dark days but usually with very inexperienced teams against strong opposition. I've followed cricket since 1974-75 and this is pretty much the worst I've seen. Even the 47 vs SA wasn't as bad as we'd just rolled SA for about 90. Boxing Day 2010 all out for 98 at the MCG is possibly worse being at home.
Next Ashes is 2.5 years away! Only four of the Australian team will possibly/probably still playing then.
The english ones will be pretty interesting too
