Australian Steve Smith watches the van from England’s Brydon Cars. (AP/PTI) Geoffrey Boycott did not consider England’s Boxing Day Test victory a fairytale moment. Instead, he presented it as a clear judgment on how the game is being played now, and in his opinion, is being played badly. Writing in The Telegraph, Boycott dismissed any hint of luck and claimed the result was built on foundations. “England won the Boxing Day Test because they played better cricket than Australia. It was no accident,” he wrote, before extending the argument to what he sees as a structural problem in modern batting.
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According to Boycott, the way batsmen are being developed is now at odds with the demands of Test cricket. He pointed to the dominance of white ball formats and the pitches that go with them. “One-day matches are played on the flattest batting pitches that the players can provide, so the batsmen can dominate by hitting the ball hard,” he said. “It’s the complete opposite of learning to hit against a moving ball on the greens. For the boycott, the problem is not limited to one series or one opposition. He believes England’s own players are shortchanged by the current calendar. “Our best batsmen play very little County cricket and almost none on tour outside of Test matches,” he wrote. “Nets alone will not help batsmen master the technique of playing with a moving ball.” That frustration then turned towards administrators. Boycott accused the ECB of prioritizing returns over long-term excellence. “Unfortunately the ECB suits are forcing them to play more and more 50-over, T20 and Hundred cricket because it brings in a lot of money,” he wrote, adding: “And we know how money is their idea of success, not winning the Ashes or being the best team in the world.” He even used Joe Root’s struggle as a warning sign rather than a personal failure. “Joe Root is England’s best technical batsman, but he made two mistakes trying to play in a normal style,” wrote Boycott. “It just shows how modern batsmen have no idea how to defend on an overgrown pitch. However, Australia came in for the most stringent assessment. Boycott said he and other former players have been raising concerns for some time. “Some of us former ‘has-beens’ have been saying before and during this tour that Aussie batting is ordinary, it depends on Smith and Head,” he wrote. “That batting line-up in the second innings showed how poor some of them are. He also questioned whether Australia’s approach had changed after taking the lead in the first innings. “I don’t know, but what I saw was a terrible at-bat,” Boycott said before detailing a sequence of avoidable strikeouts marked by hesitation and poor shot selection. While Boycott acknowledged the impact of English sailors, he ended up where he started with absolute clarity. “I’m not taking anything away from the quality of England’s seamers, but some of the dismissals were shocking. And just in case there was any doubt about his verdict, he summed it up in four words: “It was terrible.
