Another England fail as lessons remain unlearned

In the aftermath of England's Adelaide capitulation, their peeved skipper made it bluntly clear things needed to change during the week that separated his team from Boxing Day.

"We need to learn, and we need to learn fast," Joe Root deadpanned without divulging precisely what might comprise those 'learnings' other than assessing his bowling attack – led by the two most successful Test seamers England have fielded – didn't seem to understand where to land the ball.

Cramming was therefore conducted over a couple of intensive tutorials in the MCG nets with a cheat sheet hidden under the covers on the main arena, where a quick peek would have provided the tourists with a clue on how best to apply that fast-gained knowledge come Boxing Day.

Sadly, it seems the lessons were incomprehensible, or the teachers ill-prepared, or the entire epistemological episode so abstract as to ensure whatever had been learned in double-quick time was forgotten even faster.

As batter Jonny Bairstow explained after his team were rolled for 185 and Australia reduced that deficit by one-third after a day's play in the third Vodafone Test, there's no question England have been diligent in completing the homework set by the skipper.

"I can tell you now everyone's trying, (with) different methods and individual training techniques implemented," said Bairstow who second-top scored (behind Root) with 35 upon recall after two Tests in time-out.

Those techniques were as innovative as they were individual, with some batters practising while stood on one leg and Root himself increasing the sum total of his wicket from three stumps to four to help tighten his technique against bowlers attacking him on the famed 'fourth-stump line'.

Initially, and notwithstanding Root's incorrect call at the coin toss that meant his men ended up batting on a well-grassed MCG pitch when they would have preferred to be bowling, the summer schooling looked to have paid off.

Opener Haseeb Hameed diligently left alone the first seven offerings that came at him in the opening over from Mitchell Starc – a period that has proved tricky to negotiate for England thus far in the series – although in fairness he would have been hard pressed to reach most of them.

But next over, old habits resurfaced as Hameed pushed back hard in his crease while stretching his bat far forward and was dismissed in almost identical fashion (caught behind) for the exact same score (0) as in the Adelaide innings that prompted Root's scolding.

From there, lessons previously learned seemed as resonant to England's batters and bowlers as to most students at this stage in the Christmas-New Year holiday window.

Dawid Malan's retention capacity was so depleted he lost his wicket in virtually identical circumstances to those he had survived only minutes earlier.

Having seen Pat Cummins remove both England openers before the day's first recess break, Malan became intent on survival at the expense of scoring and had reached 14 in almost two hours at the crease when he pushed softly at a ball angled across him.

With the ball flying towards David Warner at slip, Malan had taken a stride towards the pavilion before realising it would bounce a metre short of the catcher and neither keeper Alex Carey nor second slip Steve Smith were diving to intercept it.

After surviving that scare, and with Cummins returning next over for the final barrage before the lunch bell, Malan received a similar ball pitched slightly fuller and slightly closer, to which he repeated the dead-bat push in a pure goldfish moment and watched it fly neatly into Warner's hands.

By that stage, head prefect Root had demonstrated the success of his innovative learning techniques by routinely moving his head outside the line of regulation off-stump which meant he was best-placed to defend safely or – as was the case with six of the 82 balls he ultimately faced – let them pass harmlessly by.

But like so many a student, he returned to the grind after lunch and found it difficult to settle, lapsing back into his old ways of riding the extra bounce offered by Australia pitches and looking to fend the ball off a slightly angled bat face past the slips cordon in search of runs.

A couple of boundaries came, and so too did the inevitable lapse as he wafted at a delivery from Starc angled across him, with his anger at being caught behind the wicket for the fifth time this series so palpable he punched the back of his bat as he had done upon dismissal in Adelaide.

Should he reach for any recent history books in upcoming study periods, he might note the fate that befell New Zealand's Devon Conway who missed the recent T20 World Cup final with a broken hand after performing the same ritual in frustration.

And so the similarities kept coming.

Ben Stokes navigated his way past 10 as he's done in all-but his first innings of this series, but again failed to reach 40 as he looked to invent a way of upper-cutting a ball that was pitched too full and therefore not bouncing with sufficient height.

Fresh from his defensive master-class in Adelaide where he batted almost four and a half hours to make 26 in Adelaide, Jos Buttler blotted his newly minted 'does have the game for Test cricket' report card by holing out to an ugly slog against Nathan Lyon on the stroke of tea.

"That's an individual decision, isn't it?," Bairstow offered when asked about the dismissal of his then batting partner, whom he walked some studious distance behind as they headed to afternoon recess with England 6-128 and in danger of detention.

"If that's the game plan to take the off-spinner down and put the pressure back on so you get another fielder back, then that's the game plan that was taken."

Bairstow then fell trying to improvise a Stokes-style glide over the slips that instead became an instinctive stroke of self-preservation as the ball from Starc homed in at his chest, and he bunted a floating catch to gully as he fell backwards on to the pitch.

Then when it was England's turn to bowl, with the benefit of witnessing the ruthless effectiveness of Australia's plan to pitch full and target their rivals stumps (even though no bowler managed to hit them).

And what did they learn from that visual demonstration, less than six days after their skipper had observed they were "a little bit short with the ball" at Adelaide?

Not a lot, on evidence proffered in the 16 overs bowled this evening.

According to those clever cartographers who pull together 'pitch maps', England's quicks landed the ball some 20cm or so shorter in length than did Australia's bowlers in the first hour of play this morning.

Consequently, England lost two wickets in that time while their rivals surrendered none.

Even the new kid – Australia debutant Scott Boland, playing his first Test while England's five-man attack is closing in on almost 300 between them – had rote learned what was required, and recited it succinctly at day's end.

"We tried to keep the stumps in play as much as possible," Boland explained after claiming his first Test wicket as well as two outfield catches.

"I think their batters were pretty conscious of wanting to leave the ball so we just tried to keep attacking them as much as we could.

"And we were judging ourselves on how much we could make them play."

If England don't mark themselves similarly harshly when class resumes tomorrow, their entire year or more's work in preparing for this Ashes trip will be deemed a fail, with the urn duly retained by their hosts.

But at least Root will be spared the time-consuming process of designing a new lesson plan if that's the case, as he can simply reprise the one he outlined after the heavy defeat in Adelaide.

"The disappointing thing about this week is that we made the same mistakes as last week," Root said last Monday night.

And might feasibly say again after this Test.

Vodafone Men's Ashes

Squads

Australia: Pat Cummins (c), Steve Smith (vc), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Jhye Richardson, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner

England: Joe Root (c), James Anderson, Jonathan Bairstow, Dom Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler, Zak Crawley, Haseeb Hameed, Dan Lawrence, Jack Leach, Dawid Malan, Craig Overton, Ollie Pope, Ollie Robinson, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood

Schedule

First Test: Australia won by nine wickets

Second Test: Australia won by 275 runs

Third Test: December 26-30, MCG

Fourth Test: January 5-9, SCG

Fifth Test: January 14-18, Blundstone Arena