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Richard Williams on England’s lack of warm-up matches, and Andrew Holder on 11 horrific words associated with the defeatI had a look at the 1967 edition of Wisden on Tuesday morning, after hearing the news of England’s Ashes defeat. Its report of the 1965-66 England tour of Australia shows that the team arrived in Australia in late October and played 10 warm-up matches, including five four-day state games, before the first Test started on 10 December. The team was not an outstanding one, but it was competitive in the series, which was drawn one-all.By contrast, the current England team was scheduled to play just two warm-up matches against scratch teams, both of which were rained off. I am sure there are other systemic causes of England’s poor performance, but the idea that we can fly a team a diagonal of the Earth away from their own fields and expect them to acclimatise within a few days to become competitive with a home team is surely fanciful.Richard WilliamsHove, East Sussex Continue reading...