Former Australia international Glenn McGrath has questioned whether the England squad contains any “great” players after suggesting that Brendon McCullum’s team don’t have the required “mental toughness and attitude” to win the Ashes.
The tourists collapsed to a famous Ashes defeat in the first Test in Perth on Saturday, with a 69-ball century from Travis Head and a catastrophic afternoon batting session – in which England lost four wickets for just 11 runs – helping Australia complete a remarkable turnaround inside two days.
It was the ninth-shortest Ashes Test in history, with the humiliation compounded by the fact that the tourists were 99 runs ahead and a wicket down going into lunch and now trail 1-0 in the series.
And McGrath highlighted the “mental toughness and attitude” of the side when questioning whether they have great players.
“There are times when England can be a high-quality team. They have good players. Good players have skill, but great players have the mental toughness and attitude to be adaptable enough for the conditions,” he said on BBC.
“For Australia to fight back and win the first Ashes Test as decisively as they did, you wonder what scars will be left on the England team. What are they going to do for the rest of the series?” he added.
Former bowler McGrath explained that “England's shot selection was their big undoing”, with their batters “trying to hit balls outside off stump, on the up, through the covers”.
“Trying to score off those deliveries, with those shots, is the one thing you just do not do as a batter in Australia,” said McGrath.
“It showed that England had not done their homework, are not able to adapt or are unwilling to adapt.
“There is a lot of talk about England's method, their aggressive style. If England do not reassess, they will struggle for the whole series.
“In Test cricket, all disciplines require a Plan B. Quite often it feels like England have one method, then nowhere to go if that does not work,” he added.
The result leaves England needing a win in the second Test of the series, which is a day-night match that begins on 4 December in Brisbane, with play getting underway at 4:30am GMT each morning.
