Former England cricketer Geoffrey Boycott is annoyed, to say the least after England were defeated in the first Ashes Test. The former opener has slammed Ben Stokes and Co. for focusing on entertaining the crowd rather than winning. Boycott also issued a warning saying if England lose this Ashes, the fans will “feel sick”.
The 82-year-old also accused Ben Stokes and Co. of treating the Ashes like “exhibition matches”. Notably, after the defeat in the first Test, Ben Stokes drew attention to the entertainment part of the game and said that “If this won’t attract people to the sport, then I don’t know what will”.
The England captain faced backlash from fans for this comment and now Geoffrey Boycott has also slammed Stokes for the same. “England have got carried away with Bazball and seem to think entertaining is more important than winning. But England supporters want one thing more than anything else — to win the Ashes.”
“Scoring fast runs, whacking lots of fours and sixes is lovely. It is great. But only if England do not lose sight of the big prize which is to beat Australia. If at the end of the series Australia go home with the Ashes, we will feel sick, regardless of how much we have been entertained,” Geoffrey Boycott wrote in his column for The Daily Telegraph.
Brendon McCullum least worried about criticism!
With so much criticism around England’s one-way approach to playing Test cricket, coach Brendon McCullum has assured that the team will continue to play as they have played so far. McCullum sees the positive side of the Edgbaston defeat and has said that England will go “a little harder” at Lord’s.
“I’m sure they’ll stick to that strategy, which is great, because we’ll go a little harder. The way that we played validated our style of play. If we’d have got a little bit of the rub of the green then we might have been on the other side of it,” McCullum told BBC.
In case you missed!
