UK View: ‘Are you joking?’ Stunned ex-stars turn on England’s ‘absolute shambles’ in ‘worst day of Bazball era’

Former players and the UK media savaged their team’s limp performance on the opening day of the second Test.

Winning the toss on a cloud-covered, rain-dotted day which ought to have been right up their pacemen’s street, England were careless with their catching, toothless with the ball and might have been absolutely taken to the cleaners if not for two wickets in four balls from their one-time spinning afterthought, Joe Root.

Ultimately, England might have felt that they’d actually been let off lightly with Australia ‘only’ making 5-339 at the end of a day which may well have been their worst in the year since the Ben Stokes-Brendon McCullum axis began.

It was all so underwhelming that it just provided a field day for some of their heroes of yesteryear, with Kevin Pietersen leading the charge from the Sky commentary box, slamming them as “absolutely shambolic”.

At one point before Root’s late intervention as Travis Head was hammering them to all parts of the ground and they looked utterly clueless at how to trouble Steve Smith, the Ashe

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