“He walked off injured and England just go completely bananas”: Mark Butcher Criticizes England’s Approach

Australia devised a strategy on Day 2 of the second Test of the Ashes 2023 series at Lord’s to stop England’s aggressive “Bazball” style of cricket. With Ollie Pope (42) and Ben Duckett (90) batting, England was cruising at 188/1 in 38 overs during the second session of the day. With England in control, Australian captain Pat Cummins made the tactical decision to use short balls to attack the batsman. He was successful in taking three wickets in 45 balls.

When attempting to draw, Pope (98), Duckett (98), and Root (10) were all out by fielders in the deep. After England’s shocking collapse, former England cricketer Mark Butcher expressed displeasure with their strategy and claimed that they abandoned a commanding position in the match even after Nathan Lyon, Australia’s top spinner, was hurt. Notably, the off-spinner was hurt while fielding at fine leg during the third session of the day.

Mark Butcher said

“And then you find yourself in this strange position whereby, having lost just the one wicket, you’re 180-1, their champion spinner goes off and you think if they’re going to be in the game at all given how flat the pitch looked at the time, he was going to be the man that would make breakthroughs and get them. He walked off injured and England just go completely bananas,” Butcher was quoted as saying by Wisden.

Butcher added that England is taking their strategy too far and is unwilling to accept responsibility for their mistakes.

“The message has gone across Ben, the others are right with you. But they’re taking it to absolute extremes. There’s a comfort in this for the players because you kind of absolve yourself of any responsibility for doing anything daft. If there’s nothing extreme, if there’s no shot that’s too silly, if there’s no risk that isn’t worth taking then basically you’re telling yourself that I can do whatever the hell I like here and it’s no problem,” he added.

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