Former England captain Michael Vaughan has criticized the national team’s aggressive batting and field placement on Day 2 of the third Test against Sri Lanka, likening England’s strategy to ‘school cricket.’
At the end of Day 1, England was on 221-3 before being dismissed for a dismal 325 because the batsmen defended too aggressively. Ollie Pope, who had remained not out on 103 at the end of Day 1, scored the highest with 154 runs.
Vaughan pondered in the ‘Test Match Special’ podcast whether England would have batted in the same style and shown similar complacency in a game against India or Australia.
“It just felt like the end of term. With the bat in hand, they were very expansive. Would they bat like that against India and Australia? They wouldn’t. They came out and set the field with lots of slips and didn’t have a fine leg.”
“It was like when you played school cricket and played a school you knew you were better than. England haven’t had many bad days this summer. I still expect them to get over the line,” he said.
At one point during play, Sri Lanka found itself down to 93-5 but by day’s close it had progressed to 211-5. An unbeaten partnership of 118 runs has been established between Kamindu Mendis and Dhananjaya de Silva.
“Don’t make a mockery of the game”- Michael Vaughan
Michael Vaughan has further cautioned against complacency saying that England might face the consequences in unimaginable ways. He put forward a proposal for England to gear up for India and Australia next year.
“England delight me a lot in the way they play. I like that they do things completely differently. But I sometimes watch and think, ‘Be careful because this game has a way of biting you.’”
”Don’t take the mickey out of the game. Be very, very careful. There are cricketing gods up there and in a year’s time, there are tougher challenges,” Vaughan said on the same podcast.
“I would ask England, ‘Were you on it all day like you would be against India and Australia?’ If they look themselves in the mirror and say they were, I would say they are lying. They weren’t on it today,” he added.
England already have an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the three-Test series.
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