The current Ashes series has just finished with a 4-1 defeat for England. I watched a bit of it. I noted that the Australian team appeared to be emotionally tougher with a hardened mentality compared to the English team which looked a bit lost and a bit soft. And we know that England has not won an Ashes series for the past 10 years. And yet historically there is quite an even balance between the two teams.
I conclude, therefore, that things have changed with the English but not the Aussies. It’s my belief that the failure of the England test team within this series is a reflection on the softer mentality of the English public in general. This is also reflected in the workplace in England where far too many young people are opting not to work due to anxiety. They seem to be finding work too hard for them and they have expectations which are perhaps unrealistic.
It is my belief that the general culture in England has become too soft and what I would call flabby. This is also noticed in politics with the current leader being very weak and lacking conviction. He’s just processing things rather than leading the country. He is not a leader. He does not have steel in his backbone as far as I’m concerned.
And I see this, as mentioned, in the English cricket team. When one side dominates as Australia has for a long time I think we have to look more at the culture of the team and the culture of the country generally rather than specific sporting techniques and training.
Although there may be a difference in training with the Australian team having higher expectations and more demands placed upon them.
As mentioned, historically, the rivalry between these two teams is remarkably balanced. Across more than a century, England and Australia traded dominance in cycles. Sometimes England lost badly but this generated a correction but nowadays it seems that England is unable to correct and are on this long-term cycle of failure.
The team actually looks less resilient compared to the Australian team. And since 2010 England have failed to win an Ashes series in Australia and have not won the urn at all since 2015. Heavy defeats are becoming familiar. There was one test victory during this series but that was on a very unsatisfactory wicket which skittled over both teams in four innings over two days. The conditions were exceptional and I would doubt whether England would have won but for that context.
The England defeats are increasingly accompanied by reassurance rather than reckoning. The Australian culture remains unsentimental and selection is unforgiving. Performance is non-negotiable. Discomfort is assumed. Players are expected to absorb pressure without ceremony. They need to respond to failure with urgency. Emotional support exists but it doesn’t dilute accountability.
England’s culture has drifted in a different direction. It could be argued that over the past decade elite performance has been wrapped in therapeutic language and failure is reframed as learning. Defeat is softened into experience and pressure is discussed as a risk to well-being rather than resulting in trying harder to produce excellence.
My argument is that the general culture in England is corrosive of the England cricket team in the Ashes series. Emotional comfort quietly outranks competitive hardness.
It could be argued that in earlier generations in England (I’m referring to the early part of the 20th century going forward) people expected there to be stress in the workplace and in life generally. Often people worked six days a week. Now employers are likely to get employees to work four days a week or even three because of extended weekends thanks to supposed hybrid working.
There is a lack of hardness. Expectations are too high today. In the long past people expected life to be tough and they put up with it. One carried on regardless. Today, mental weaknesses are often treated as abnormalities, quickly labelled (ADHD for example) and managed as if they are malfunctions. Doctors tend to label sadness as depression and nervousness as chronic anxiety. We need to accept these emotional states as part of one’s normal lifestyle.
It is a medicalisation of normal emotional experience and it subtly alters behaviour. Endurance gives way to accommodation. Resilience is replaced by vigilance.
In sport, as in the wider workplace, this produces fragility without intending to. When individuals are repeatedly told that discomfort is harmful, they begin to treat it as such. Pressure becomes threatening rather than clarifying and failure becomes identity shaping.
It could be argued that the bazball policy which has been so successful in the past but which failed in Australia, is best understood as a symptom of this culture rather than its cause. It celebrates freedom, expression and positivity. At home and against lesser opposition it can be exhilarating. In Australia, under relentless scrutiny and hostile conditions, it collapses because it lacks ballast and resilience. Australia do not flinch while England blinks.
High performance demands ability to function well under strain. The current England culture can produce a team that can explain away defeat which resists transformation.
My suggestion is that England’s Ashes decline is a visible edge of a deeper cultural softening. The players are not worse than they were before; same people but shaped by different expectations and moulded by a different culture in the country.
