'Over-prepared' England seek reset on Noosa holiday

England have vowed to spend less time practicing and more time focusing on "training to dominate" as they embark on a mid-series Sunshine Coast getaway after going down 0-2 on their Ashes tour at the Gabba.

Bazball masterminds Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes will take their charges on a healing trip to Noosa after England's coach declared his side had "over-prepared" leading into the second NRMA Insurance Test they lost by eight wickets on Sunday.

Given their unfamiliarity with the pink ball, England were criticised for sending none of their Test players to Canberra for a day-night tour match against the Prime Minister's XI in between the first two Tests.

They instead opted for five solid days of training to get acclimatised to Brisbane's draining humidity, while netting on practice wickets that had the same length of grass (3mm) as the second-Test pitch.

McCullum now says even that was over-kill.

"I think leading into this match, I felt like we over-prepared to be honest," the former New Zealand Test blaster told Channel Seven.

"We had five intense training days. I think sometimes when you're in the heat of the battle as we all know, sometimes the most important thing is to feel a little bit fresh and make sure your top two inches is completely sound.

"I think the boys just need a few days off and probably need to change up a few of the training methods.

"I'm a horse-racing man and you wouldn't just keep doing the same things with your horse. You'd send it around in figure eights over the little jumps to switch it on. We will look at alternative methods over the next few days.

"We've got a couple days in Noosa so we can spend some time together more casually and let the dust settle on what has been a pretty intense couple of weeks and start to plot and plan our way back into the series."

England's escape two hours north to the Sunshine Coast's beaches and golf courses was planned before the series, and marries with the Stokes-McCullum regime's focus on instilling confidence in players and getting away from cricket's stressors where possible.

Stokes insists his men now need to double down on those principles even as they slumped to the verge of another Ashes series defeat on these shores. 

"There's a great saying that I know – are you going to train to train or are you going to train to dominate?" said England's skipper.

"There's a lot of training that you see go on where you're just doing it for the sake of doing it. You're doing it to look right, to be doing the right things, whereas actually you're not achieving anything out of it.

"It might look good to the external world and the people around you. Wasting energy, putting your energy into the wrong reasons as to why you're training can be very, very detrimental.

"On the back of the first Test match, when you do desperately want something like we do, maybe you can fall into that 'train to train'. I’ve been guilty of that as well.

"I understand that it sounds like, 'Well, surely if you train more you're going to be better'. But there's that saying … and I like to train to dominate, as does this team."

Stokes labelled the five weeks his side have spent in Australia so far as "full on". They have been beaten by big margins in both Tests, with England's skipper suggesting he will check on the welfare of individual players over the coming days.

McCullum has conceded dealing with the "hostility" of touring this country is a major challenge for his group. Stokes was among a group of touring players photographed riding e-scooters without helmets before the second Test, and was even asked this week if the people of Queensland deserve an apology for flouting local laws.

Stokes has previously noted the toll exacted on players when they are followed by cameras during their downtime on the golf course, or in restaurants and cafes.

"I know what the game can do to you when the game is not feeling right or going well, so trust me when I say it is so important for teams, when they do get an occasion or an opportunity to be able to go away as a team, almost put the pressures of this aside for a couple of days," he said.

"That doesn't mean everything disappears and we don't speak about what is going on, because those conversations are constantly happening.

"It's also very important that when you do get the opportunity you are able to go away and refresh your mind, because obviously in Adelaide we need to be physically and mentally very good."

On the field, England leaders have conceded they have been outplayed by the home side and been too slow to recognise big moments in matches and react accordingly.

McCullum pointed to their poor bowling on day two, with Stokes taking responsibility for bad spells bowled by him and Brydon Carse, as well as their five dropped catches over the course of the Aussie innings as major shortfalls.

"We were trying too hard was my assessment of it," McCullum said when asked about England's bowling at the start of Australia's first innings.

"We identified that we had a reasonable score with the bat in the first innings, and we knew that there was quite a pivotal moment in the game if we were able to strike.

"We're honest with ourselves, we bowled terribly in that period and Australia were able to canter along at a very strong strike rate and from that point on, it was a matter of us trying to almost bring the game back to us a little bit."

Stokes essentially admitted his team were front-runners.

"We have all been guilty of it so far on this tour at moments, maybe letting the pressure, the occasion, the circumstances get to us in our decision-making ability," he said.

"I remember my first team chat with 'Baz', it was: 'Our blueprint is about applying pressure to the opposition but also understanding that we do need to absorb that at moments.'

"I will say that we are a much better team at applying it than we are at absorbing it at the moment … and we can definitely look to improve on the moments where we need to absorb.

"They've got Travis Head now at the top who, he plays how he plays, he's very, very difficult to bowl to when he gets going, he is tough.

"There was a lovely crack running down the wicket, that Scott Boland and Michael Neser I thought in particular were incredible at hitting.

"So when there's something like that on the wicket that can assist you, and you're not consistently able to hammer away at that … We let the game get away from us very, very quickly. It was always going to be tough to bring it back.

"Also I know we took 12 wickets this game, but it felt like 17 because of the dropped catches … you can't drop catches at this level and not expect them to bite you in the arse."

2025-26 NRMA Insurance Men's Ashes

First Test: Australia won by eight wickets

Second Test: Australia won by eight wickets

Third Test: December 17-21: Adelaide Oval, 10:30am AEDT

Fourth Test: December 26-30: MCG, Melbourne, 10:30am AEDT

Fifth Test: January 4-8: SCG, Sydney, 10:30am AEDT

Australia squad (second Test only): Steve Smith (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Brendan Doggett, Cameron Green, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster

England squad: Ben Stokes (c), Harry Brook (vc), Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith (wk), Josh Tongue, Mark Wood