22 hours ago
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Why does it always turn out like this?
Not the losing. The losing is easy to understand.
Australia are a better cricket team than England, especially in Australia. Twenty-seven Australia wins in 35 Ashes Tests in this country since the turn of the century tells a conclusive story.
No, the feelings of bewilderment, dismay and downright anger come from yet another Ashes tour with concerns over England cricketers and whether there is a problematic drinking culture.
Eight years ago, Jonny Bairstow was lampooned in the Australian media for a 'headbutt' to home opener Cameron Bancroft in a Perth bar. On the same trip Ben Duckett, then with the England Lions, was punished for pouring a drink over James Anderson.
At the end of the Covid Ashes of 2021-22, an early-hours drinking session had to be broken up by police in Hobart.
Now, after a 4-1 defeat and England's most disappointing Australia tour for decades, has come the revelation that Harry Brook got into a fight with a nightclub bouncer on the tour of New Zealand that preceded the Ashes.
It was the night before a one-day international in Wellington for which Brook was England captain and which the tourists lost.
This was supposed to be England's big opportunity to finally compete in Australia after a miserable run of one away series win in 40 years.
But it has been a shambles of a tour. Preparation that many regard as not fit for purpose. Then awful shots, dropped catches and scattergun bowling when the series began. Meanwhile, off the field, there has been concern over England players drinking in bars.
In what was supposed to be the crowning glory of the 'Bazball' project, England's moniker could be perhaps cruelly be renamed 'Boozeball' after the latest revelations.
Just as the players were relaxing on the outfield of the Sydney Cricket Ground in the aftermath of yet another defeat in the fifth Test, the Brook report dropped in the Daily Telegraph,, external followed by statements from England and the man himself.
An hour earlier, the England and Wales Cricket Board had released a statement from chief executive Richard Gould. Gould said he would review the tour of Australia, including the behaviour of the players.
There was no mention of New Zealand, even although he already knew what happened, as the details had not been made public. His organisation had not felt it necessary to utter a word until the Telegraph newspaper did it for them two months later.
In the home summer, ECB chairman Richard Thompson insisted a white-ball tour of New Zealand was good preparation for the Ashes.
By the time the Ashes began, all of the top brass knew what had gone on with Brook in Wellington. The tourists had been 31-4 and actually did well to only lose by two wickets. Brook, the Test vice-captain as well as England's white-ball captain, was out for six.
Should such details have been made public? Or, perhaps more importantly, should they have prompted a different approach to discipline? Coach Brendon McCullum had previously scrapped a midnight curfew that was in place on the England team.
The ECB will point to the fact that action was taken - and what they say was a "formal and confidential ECB disciplinary process". Brook was fined about £30,000 and placed on a final warning for his future conduct.
The public apology only came after the Telegraph story - but we do not know what contrition had been expressed internally.
When you look with hindsight, it is difficult not to try and piece it together with some of things that followed during the Ashes, whether they are connected or not.
And why does it matter? Because it means so much.
Thousands of England fans emptied their bank accounts to travel to Australia in the hope they might see an Ashes win.
Countless others flicked on the TV or radio in the middle of the night, ruining their Christmas sleep patterns to follow the calamitous cricket being played in a different hemisphere.
When they lost the first Test in Perth inside two days, some of the players spent the resulting time off in the casino attached to their hotel.
When the Ashes were lost in Adelaide, one player was out in a club without his team-mates or security until the early hours of the following morning.
Captain Ben Stokes asked for "empathy" in the aftermath of a video of Duckett, apparently drunk in Noosa, appearing on social media.
As for the Noosa holiday in general, quite how it went ahead between the second and third Tests in the aftermath of the Brook incident is staggering.
Even before the emergence of Brook's misdemeanour, the excesses of Noosa were an abiding memory of this tour. That England players - including Brook - sat in bars for hours on end, in plain sight of the public and the media, beggars belief.
In fact, the ECB had announced just before Christmas that reports of players drinking excessively in Noosa would be investigated.
However director of cricket Rob Key denied there was a drinking culture within the squad - but made no mention of the New Zealand incident.
In his statement released on Thursday, Brook said he was "determined to learn" from his New Zealand mistake. Noosa perhaps suggested that is still an ongoing process.
Days after Noosa, when England played the crucial third Test in Adelaide, with the Ashes on the line and temperatures on the way to 40C, it was Brook who put down an edge off Usman Khawaja on the first morning.
The drop was just one moment on an Ashes tour where Brook was nowhere near his best on the field.
A return of 358 runs at an average of 39.77 in this series is respectable, but well below Brook's career mark of almost 55. He is yet to make an Ashes century in 10 Tests.
Who knows if it is all connected - but he has put himself in a position of being closely scrutinised.
The 26-year-old may be the England captain next time they visit Australia. But sport is cruel, fickle and unpredictable. What if this turns out to be Brook's only Ashes tour?
He should be boarding his flight home on Friday with a deep sense of regret over a missed opportunity.
England are certainly also not the only team who like a drink. Travis Head turned up to Australia's training before the fourth Test a little dusty following the Adelaide celebrations. But Australia had won the series and Head had made three centuries.
These episodes combine to be a further damning indictment of the concern that there is a slack culture around the England team that has manifested itself in mediocre results and performances.
Once, the 'Bazball' regime was about getting the best out of proven Test cricketers who had lost their way in a struggling team - Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes, Bairstow and Mark Wood.
Now, a younger generation has been found wanting on the biggest stage, at least in part because they have not been given the right grounding at the highest level.
To Brook and plenty of his team-mates, drinking, not bothering with fielding practice and a lack of accountability for awful batting is all they know.
These players do not need slogans - "run towards the danger", "take the game on", "live, laugh, love" - they need guidance on how to play Test cricket.
Stokes says he wants to remain England captain and almost certainly will, not least because the next in line is Brook.
McCullum and Key will be given the chance to stay on if they can improve the culture of the England team, a metric determined by Gould and Thompson.
The question is if any of these men can do what is necessary, or if England will have another Ashes hangover in four years' time.
