England humiliated by ‘second-string’ Australia – Vaughan

England have been “humiliated” by Australia in the Ashes series and are in danger of suffering “psychological damage”, says former captain Michael Vaughan.

Having conceded a first-innings lead of 177, the tourists collapsed to 134-6 by the close on day three and now look set to lose the opening two matches of the series.

“England are a side that, for three or four years now, have played one way and I just think teams know how to play against them and that’s a real worry,” Vaughan told BBC Test Match Special.

“They were humiliated in that second day in Perth, and today and yesterday.”

England lost Ben Duckett shortly after dinner, but reached 90-1 before losing five wickets for 38 runs, with Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope both chipping return catches to Michael Neser and Joe Root, Harry Brook and Jamie Smith all edging behind.

“England continue to play this aggressive, flamboyant style which is entertaining – it’s enjoyable at times – but against quality it’s all becoming a bit too predictable,” Vaughan added.

“Bowl outside off stump to Ollie Pope, you know he’s going to drive it, he gets away with a couple and then he knocks one back to Neser.

“Zak Crawley has probably wasted two innings of great form – he’s played beautifully this week, he’s got a 76 and a 44.

“If I was Zak I would’ve wanted to put a huge deposit in the bank because he played so well with his head position, with his hands, but then he played a loose shot.”

With a number of batters out of form, England have limited replacement options within the squad.

England Lions, who are playing a four-day unofficial Test against Australia A elsewhere in Brisbane, conceded a 388-run first-innings lead at the end of Saturday’s day two.

“There is no spare keeper, I think Jamie Smith is a wonderful talent, but he is struggling. Ben Duckett looks scratchy and edgy at the top. Pope is all over the place, once again,” said Vaughan.

“You can’t just keep dipping into Joe Root’s well – ‘go on Joe, go get us another 100’. It is not just possible.

“I worry about this psychological damage of this last two days. Not just for the batters, but particularly the bowlers, who had so much time out there and they just didn’t look like they were going to get wickets.”

BBC chief cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew added: “The fact is that none of these players are being put under any pressure by anybody else in the squad – there is no culpability, there are no ramifications, there’s no question of anybody being dropped.

“Apart from Pope who has Bethell in the wings, but he’s not scoring any runs either. There’s nobody to put pressure on any of these players, so you just go out and bat as you want to play.

“There should be a selection in which these players are being put under pressure, and if you fail time and again doing the same thing, you’re gone, you’re dropped.”

Meanwhile, Australia’s selection issues are to do with where to slot in their returning stars, with captain Pat Cummins passed fit for the third Test, Josh Hazlewood working back towards fitness and Nathan Lyon not selected for this match.

“Let’s just mention this Australian team have got over thousand wickets not playing,” Vaughan said.

“This is their second string.”

England have received significant criticism for their preparation, playing one pre-series warm-up fixture and not participating in a two-day second-string game with the pink ball in Canberra last weekend.

Asked on BBC Test Match Special whether England were suffering the effects of a lack of preparation, assistant coach Marcus Trescothick was unequivocal that that was not the case.

“No not at all, not for me. I think the way that it’s done, preparation these days is not done necessarily by playing Sheffield Shield games, as it was before.

“Cricket is a lot more condensed these days. It’s the same for Australia when they come to England, it’s the same for India when they come to England, when we go to opposition countries we do exactly the same.

“There’s no real difference, it’s just the way it is, fair enough we haven’t played the quality of cricket we wanted to, but it’s not down to our preparation.”

Vaughan’s perspective on England’s preparation differed to that of his 2005 Ashes-winning team-mate.

“I sometimes listen to a lot of the kind of messages in the England camp and I’m baffled,” he said.

“Nowhere in a million years has preparation been right. You have players that are out there that were looking completely shell-shocked against the pink ball because they’re playing with it for the first time.

“They need a bit of realism, say to themselves, ‘have we given this team the absolute best chance to be successful here in Australia?’

“And, if they get a message back saying yes I’d be wary.”

On this Saturday at the Gabba, we had Jofra Archer arriving with a pillow, Michael Vaughan refusing to down a pint with a group of Stormtroopers and Bluey beating Peppa Pig in a vote to be crowned the superior children’s cartoon.

All seemed more plausible events than an England display of steel, substance and fortitude.

England are once again being slaughtered at the Gabbatoir and are left in need of a Christmas miracle on Vulture Street. They cannot lose the series here, but the Ashes will surely be gone before Father Christmas has checked his list twice.

There will be a long, long time for recriminations and post-mortem – this series does not end until the second week of January.

Are we witnessing the end of the Bazball project? There is a reasonable chance the men in charge of England – Ben Stokes, Brendon McCullum and Rob Key – remain in post regardless of the result, though some deep soul-searching over what this team stands for will be required.

Just as Darth Vader arrived in the crowd, Pat Cummins stalked through the media centre as a reminder England have been taking on a ‘weakened’ Australia team. There is ample opportunity for this tour to get much, much worse.

This was supposed to be England’s big chance to win in Australia, the most-anticipated Ashes in a generation.

Instead, it will be as good as over inside six days and England will only be battling to avoid producing their worst performance in Australia this century.