Former England cricketer Chris Woakes has come to the defence of his country’s controversial playing style during the Ashes series against Australia this winter. England find themselves 2-0 down in the five-match series following defeats in both opening Tests over recent weeks.
Ben Stokes’s side suffered their first loss at Perth’s Optus Stadium – completed within just two days – before enduring another setback in the day-night match in Brisbane earlier this month. These defeats leave England facing an uphill battle to salvage the series, requiring victories in all three remaining matches to secure a remarkable triumph.
The third Test will see England face Australia in Adelaide, commencing on Tuesday (UK time). Woakes, who only retired from international cricket in September, was part of the England dressing room alongside Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum in recent years.
The 36-year-old has hit back at criticism aimed at England’s ‘Bazball’ philosophy in Test cricket, standing by his former teammates as they gear up for a crucial match in Adelaide.
“Within the dressing room, they’ll be tight,” Woakes told BOYLE Sports. “They’ll know how they want to go about it and think if you build for a series like this for three years, you’re not going to get here and then completely change your style because you’ll be going against your morals and your beliefs.
“I don’t think the players will take too much notice. I think naturally you’ll feel the pressure and feel like you’re under the pump, of course you will because there’s pressure to perform. There’s no doubt about that.
“They’ll believe the way out of it is by sticking to their guns, sticking to knowing the style that they play. But just doing it better and executing plans better and just being smarter around certain times in the game.
“I actually genuinely believe the style of play isn’t the problem. It’s more the execution and they’ve just got it wrong across a couple of Test matches. They haven’t executed their plans well enough, both bowling and batting.
“We’ve enjoyed how this team’s played and taken the attack to oppositions over the last three years by winning test matches, by putting teams under pressure with the bat and then all of a sudden, you come to such a big series and it hasn’t quite come off.
“Then all of a sudden it’s ‘we should be doing things how Australia does things’ and I can understand the logic behind that. But at the same time, if you’ve doubled down and committed to a style of play for three years, you’re not then going to change that in the middle of a series and I don’t think England will. If anything, they’ll try and come out and continue to play the way they have, but just execute it better.”
Woakes continued: “I can see both sides to it, but naturally England’s way is to try and put pressure on their best bowlers to try and hit him out of the attack to make sure that they bring back the other bowlers into their second, third and fourth spells and then they can capitalise on that.
“But if they’d have played Mitchell Starc better, we could have easily been in the better position and it was more the execution of the plan rather than the style itself. I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with the style of play.”