England's first Ashes Test capitulation with bat and ball a symptom of 'dumb', brainless batting

Ben Stokes probably summed it up best.

The unflappable hero of Headingley, England's talisman and chief destroyer just 24 hours prior, admitted to being "a little bit shell-shocked" after Australia, or more specifically Travis Head, wrestled Australia out of a desperately tough spot to claim a thumping first Test victory in Perth.

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Others were not so kind.

Former skipper Michael Vaughan was scathing, rubbishing England's approach with the bat that resulted in two collapses in as many days and the surrendering of a powerful position midway through day two.

"It disappoints me hugely," Vaughan told Fox Sports.

"In 2023, the first Test match at Edgbaston, England was dominating and in the second innings Nathan Lyon got five-fa [sic] with England playing some dumb cricket. Pat Cummins saw them over the line [with the bat], Australia 1-0 up.

"Then they went to Lord's … dumb cricket, get bowled out, England 2-0 down. 

"Two years later, at the first time of asking, I see a batting unit playing the exactly same way.

"Five hours ago England were dominating the game. Five hours later we're sitting here, Australia are 1-0 up."

It's true. England was dominating, 99 runs ahead at lunch on the second day with nine wickets in hand. 

The carnage of day one seemed, if not a distant memory, then at least a fever-dream that both teams had been able to put behind them — the shaking out of all those pre-Ashes nerves manifest in a ridiculous smorgasbord of accelerated gameplay.

But then, with everything seemingly in hand, a litany of atrocious shots resulted in England collapsing into an ungainly heap for the second straight innings.

The same old story, so familiar to England fans, was being written once again.

England went from 1-65 to 6-88 in 8.2 overs and were all out with a lead of just 204. In the first innings, it was a collapse of 5-12 in just 18 balls.

But Vaughan and plenty of others were aghast at the manner of the dismissals.

"We've been saying we want 'Bazball with brains' but the brains haven't arrived," Vaughan told the BBC. 

"They're all trying to whack it to the boundary, it's so disappointing. I look back to last year and it looked like they were learning. I don't see how they can win a big series batting like that.

"I thought England had a good chance but the bowlers weren't even getting a rest; 30 overs but it wasn't even 30 overs because they were padding up, it's unacceptable. 

"It's silly for us to think they'll win down under if we play like that. This match, they haven't used their tools correctly."

Bazball with brains? Perhaps that's Travball.

While Head picked his moments and carved England's attack to all corners, England's shot selection was decried as "substandard" by BBC broadcasting doyen Jonathan Agnew, "really poor" by Justin Langer and "inexcusable" by Vaughan.

England's hall of shame of brainless batting was low-lighted by three of England's supposed best on Saturday in a half-hour period that sent a collection of England's ex-players apoplectic in rage. 

During England's hideous second-day capitulation, Ollie Pope, Harry Brook and Joe Root all perished to near-identical shots.

Pope, having been in the middle for an hour and a half and having faced 56 balls, may have felt a full-blooded drive at a ball outside off stump was vindicated. Every batting coach in history would suggest his lack of footwork was not, but perhaps there can be some accommodation to a man who had looked quite sharp.

However, for Brook to play the very same shot against the very same bowler two minutes later borders on the idiotic.

For Root, the number one-ranked Test batter in the world, to follow suit with another shot from a statuesque base, was ludicrous. 

Stuart Broad, no stranger to stupid dismissals himself, could not hide a visible obscenity on Channel 7's coverage, with his reaction doubtlessly repeated and amplified in English living rooms throughout the early hours of the morning back home.

England lost those three wickets of arguably their best batters in the space of five fraught deliveries as panic cascaded down the line-up like a dousing of freezing cold water would subdue a pack of overly energetic dogs.

Yes, the batting was woeful.

But the bowlers cannot escape scrutiny for their part in the shambles that followed.

In the space of 24 hours, England's arsenal of pace bowlers went from a world-beating quintet compared to the legendary trio of pace bowlers who terrorised Australia in the late 1950s to an embarrassed collection of club cricketers being pummelled to all parts of Perth Stadium.

Never has the hammer been fashioned into the nail so swiftly.

The Barmy Army, raucously anticipating every 150km/h missile one day, were left sullen and silent as Head and Marnus Labuschagne, frankly, rendered them impotent with a blistering array of shots to all corners of the ground.

England's five-pronged attack was lethal in the first innings, averaging 141km/h on day one, the fastest data provider CricViz has recorded since it started doing so in 2006.

This attack of Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse was Fred Trueman, Frank Tyson, Brian Statham and Peter Loader reborn, with Stokes adding the same guile that Trevor Bailey blessed that fearsome 1958/59 battery with. 

In Perth, Archer and Wood both hit speeds of over 150km/h and, for the first time in several generations, England was able to fight fire with fire.

But instead of loading the howitzers with gunpowder for day two, England may as well have stuffed its big barrels with sawdust, such was its effectiveness. 

Archer barely and briefly got up over 140km/h. Wood, too, struggled to find any rhythm. Atkinson and Carse? Simply fodder for Head's ravenous accumulation of runs.

This is not to take away anything from Head's innings — "one of the best knocks" according to both Stokes and Brendon McCullum — a spectacular blitzkrieg of unadulterated power and innovation that may well have caused permanent damage to England's hopes of success in this series.

"It was an extraordinary knock," McCullum said. 

"We've always said if someone stands up to us and produces a performance like that, you have to tip your cap. 

"He knocked us off our lengths when we wanted to hold our lengths as long as we could, and we thought that was the most dangerous thing on the pitch. We weren't able to do that due to the pressure they put us under, so fair play."

So what now? 

A pink-ball Test at the humid sweat-box that is the Gabba in December is hardly conducive to a confidence-boosting stint in the middle that most of these batters require.

There is a pink-ball game scheduled for the gap between these two Tests against Australia A in Canberra.

Will England take up that opportunity?

"If England don't think that's good preparation to go and play a pink-ball game, they're absolutely stupid," Vaughan said.

McCullum said England would continue to follow its own path.

"There will be a lot of chatter and for us it's about making sure we don't let our confidence and camaraderie tip too low," he said. 

"We know that at our best, we are a good cricket team. 

"We have an extended time off and we have 10 to 12 days to bounce back. We've done it before. We'll believe in what we want to achieve at Brisbane."

Stokes, meanwhile, said he needed the team to "hurt" after that defeat.

"This is a tough one to start with, given we felt in control of the game," he said.

"We have four more games here. We have to let this sink in. It's hurting at the moment but we have to get our head round it and get to Brisbane. We have a long time before that game starts and put the hard graft for Brisbane."

Whatever happens in Brisbane will make or break this series — and likely the careers of those Englishmen who have pinned all their hopes on this series to restore some honour after their previous disappointments down under.

So as England counts the cost of this shambolic defeat, it needs to know that questions over how its world-beating pace attack was so stymied and its high-class batters so comprehensively, collectively lost the plot will rumble all the way to Brisbane and probably beyond.