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England’s key fast bowlers are fragile. This is how Australia win the Ashes

Geoff Lawson Cricket columnist October 11, 2025 — 4.30pm

As Ashes summers go, the 2025-26 edition is promising as much speculation and opining as any since perhaps Mike Gatting’s 1986-87 “can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field” chapter, when the tourists were written off by their own scribes.

That derisive vision was delivered after a spectacularly impotent start against the state teams in the age when tourists actually played warm-up first-class games in competitive match conditions before each Test match. Fancy preparing for a Test match by playing serious fixtures on the home team’s pitches!

Whatever England did back then must have helped them work through the e

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