England’s Problem Wasn’t the Partying - It Was Partying Like Amateurs
Musings on the fifth Ashes Test from an anonymous former Australian Test cricketer
Ever since this Ashes ended - Australia winning 4-1 with the Poms’ sole victory coming from the cricketing equivalent of a dodgy game of two-up - all I’ve heard from the English media and fans and Piers Morgans is an endless array of ‘if only’s.
If only we’d prepared properly for the series. If only we’d had proper warm-up matches. If only we hadn’t batted like headless, and forward defensiveless, chooks. If only our bowlers hadn’t all been assembled from wet cardboard. If only we’d had a fielding coach. If only we’d trained more. If only we’d trained less. Strike me down - there’s been more ifs than a bloody Rudyard Kipling poem.
This isn’t Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Fucken Madness, lads. We’re not traversing parallel Earths, looking for the one true timeline in which England somehow got their shit together. There’s no alternate dimension where Jamie Smith doesn’t bat like a brainless drongo. There just isn’t. You need to face facts and live in the real world. The world that actually happened rather than your imaginariums of fairy bread and fantasies.
In the real world, your mob spent most of the tour - and the lead-in to the tour - partying like backpackers in Thailand who’d just realised buckets of vodka cost three dollars. Brook gets into it with a bouncer in Wellington and England keeps it hidden for three months like it’s some classified military operation. Duckett gets so plastered in Noosa he can’t find his way home from the pub, and ends up on Instagram wandering the streets. FFS, Ben, Noosa’s got about three streets. How do you get lost? If you’re going to drink for six days straight, at least learn the route home on day one. Classic England, once again failing to get the basics right. They party worse than they play cricket. A harsh fucken claim, I know. But there you are.
England weren’t professional enough to abstain, like Big Mitch Starc, swearing off the booze until he’s secured himself the Player of the Series award. But their piss-ups were all over the shop too. An embarrassment. And while there’s fuck-all hope for them to improve their cricket, we can surely do something about their recreational activities.
First, forget all the talk about needing a fielding coach, bowling coach, batting coach, whingeing about fucken Snicko coach and the rest. No, the number one priority for Team England should be hiring a party coach. McCullum clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing on this front, just winging it with his sunnies and bro vibes and easy access to the esky. (Probably calls it a ‘chilly bin’, though, the sick Kiwi prick.)
Take your bar work seriously, England. You can’t have ‘optional’ Noosa drinking sessions, then act all surprised when Joe Root bows out to hang with his family for a few days instead. Piss-ups should be mandatory, even for boring old pros like Joe.
Use that time to do some research into the local drinking culture - don’t just rock up thinking because you had a four-pack of ciders at Lilac Hill, you’re ready to drink properly in Australian conditions. If you’re in Perth, study the casino layouts. Know where the blackjack tables are, where the exits are, which route gets you back to Crown Towers without getting photographed by some equally shitfaced Barmy Army soldier. If you’re in Brisbane, practise how you’ll fare facing the pink cocktails under lights. Don’t just assume you’ll be right. Head to Canberra and try some pink cocktails there. It’s not the same drinking conditions, but at least you’ll get some experience.
If Harry wants to pick a fight with a bouncer, representing his country by getting into a blue with security, at least make it memorable. Aim to make the Channel 7 news, not just a piss-poor scuffle that doesn’t even get discovered until the tour’s fucken over.
If Big Brydon Carse is going to have hundreds of dollars spilling out of his wallet in a cafe after a big night at the casino, all the players should be backing him up, spilling all their cash out of their wallets too. That’s teamwork. That’s unity. That’s mateship.
And invest in the game, ECB. If the players want to be out, shitfaced, the night before a big game, do it properly. You lot can afford IV drips. Ice baths. Electrolyte plans. You’re not some club side from South Derbyshire trying to scrape together beer money. You’re the England Cricket Board. Act like it. Cricket Australia spends millions on sports science and recovery. You can spring for some Berocca and a registered nurse with a drip bag. Take your drinking seriously, for fuck’s sake.
Look, in retrospect, Noosa should have been a proper drinking boot camp. Not ‘connectivity and camaraderie’ bullshit - actual structure.
Day one: establish the drinking hierarchy
Day two: practice sessions at the local
Day three: recovery protocols
Day four: opposition analysis - study how Australians drink, learn from it
Day five: match simulation - full night out with designated cutoff time, as if you have to be up for a Test the next morning
Day six: review session - what worked, what didn’t, who made it home, who ended up on Insta
That’s how you use a week off. Not this half-arsed ‘let’s just get randomly on the piss and wait to see who goes viral on the socials’ garbage.
You know what would also help? An official party captain. Separate from Stokes, who has too much other shit on his plate to get bogged down in the true pissheads’ social activities. Of course the cricket captain’s going to tell you not to go out in Adelaide the night you lost the Ashes. The man’s knackered. But a specialist party captain could have made a proper night of it and taken the pressure off Ben. Managing the rotation of who buys rounds. Strategically selecting when to move to the next pub. Knowing when to declare the night over. Calling for reviews when someone’s had enough. Making the tough calls so Stokes doesn’t have to. Tugga would’ve sorted this without thinking. Probably had Warnie or someone doing it unofficially. That’s how champions operate. Leadership.
You’re going to party anyway. What you can’t do in 2029/30 is keep stumbling through seven weeks of drinking with no plan, no structure, and no commitment.
Forget all the other ‘if only’s. Here’s the big one: if only you’d partied properly and played your cricket half-maggoted. That would have been a tour to look back upon fondly. And, honestly, you wouldn’t have fared any worse.
