Ian Botham slams ’embarrassing’ England display after humiliating 4-0 Ashes series defeat

Cricket legend Ian Botham has slammed England’s underwhelming Ashes performance following their 4-0 series loss in Australia.

England’s disappointing tour was finished in calamitous fashion, after the visitors were set 271 to win, England reached 68-0 before losing all 10 wickets for the addition of another 56 runs in Hobart.

Botham has given his scathing assessment of England’s performance, claiming that the current batch of players are ’embarrassing’ and ‘gutless’.

Speaking on Channel 7, Botham said: ‘It’s been embarrassing, if I am honest, gutless. 

‘I thought the way that they performed today will have disappointed me and disappointed everyone back home. They should be disappointed in that dressing room as well, with the performance.

‘The one thing we have to do now is take our heads out of the sand and we need to pull together and prioritise red ball cricket.’  

Botham had also told BT Sport that he believes some of the players ‘could be at the end of their careers’. 

 ‘They’ve been completely steam-rollered and … a lot of these guys could be at the end of their careers,’ he said.

 ‘And a lot will be sent back to learn how to play at this level because the Australian public wanted a fight and they haven’t had it.

‘It’s disappointing and some of it has been embarrassing – selections, winning the toss and bowling when it’s overcast on a green pitch in Brisbane, where I played for a year and could have told them exactly what it was going to do.

‘Then we left two guys with 1,156 wickets [James Anderson and Stuart Broad] sitting in the stand and carrying the drinks. There’s been a lot of stuff that doesn’t make sense.’ 

England have now lost 13 of their 15 Tests in Australia since Andrew Strauss’ team won 4-0 in 2010-11. 

The tourists runs per wicket average of 20.21 is their lowest in an Ashes series since 1890, when the figure was 16.29 – but that was in only two Tests, and England won 2-0.