Ashes 2025-26: How England lost their latest Ashes series in just 11 days

Hindsight makes us all experts, but this tour’s failures began long ago.

It was a missed opportunity not to experience a true opener when Zach Crawley was injured in the summer of 2024, instead asking Dan Lawrence to do a job that didn’t suit him. Lawrence has not been seen since.

If Jordan Cox’s broken thumb in New Zealand 12 months ago was unfortunate – Cox could have been a much-needed backup keeper in Australia – then the decision to send Mark Wood to the Champions Trophy has proven very costly.

England desperately wanted speed on this tour, and then managed to land the fastest player in a tournament they were never going to win.

Assistant coach Paul Collingwood disappeared at the start of the home summer and was not replaced, and there was no clarity on the identity of England’s fast bowling coach for this tour until the last minute.

Chris Woakes’ dislocated shoulder has effectively ruled him out of the Ashes, but there are still two more players in England’s squad for the final Test against India who have not made it to Australia: Jimmy Overton and Liam Dawson.

Overton took a break from red-ball cricket after using up a place at The Oval that could have gone to Matthew Potts, Matthew Fisher or Sam Cooke. Dawson – or any other front-line player – could have been practical cover for Australia’s Shoaib Bashir, whose form was an accident waiting to happen.

Even the announcement of the Ashes squad was a depressing harbinger of things to come.

While the British and Irish Lions unveiled their Australian tour squad in front of 2,000 fans at the O2 in London, England pushed out their squad in a press release without warning two hours after announcing the death of legendary referee Dickie Bird.

When that happened, a 12-month row over Ollie Pope’s place continued as he was replaced as vice-captain, further fueling the still-unresolved Jacob Bethell controversy.

Director of cricket Rob Key did not speak to explain the team until a full 24 hours later, at which point he ended Woakes’ international career, taking the moment away from the man himself.