The England cricket team are an absolute shambles

On an overcast Saturday, a friend and I were trading jokes, trying to make other laugh. He triumphed with six simple words: “I’ll tell you a joke: England.”

The English cricket team has been in the depths of hell after a horrendous Ashes campaign against the mighty Australians in 2013-14.

Mitchell Johnson wrecked havoc like a magnitude eight earthquake and sent England home with their tails between their legs. He played a huge part in ending the international careers of English cricketers, including Matt Prior, Jonathan Trott and Graeme Swann.

Their World Cup campaign has further confirmed that they just can’t play cricket.

England made a major mistake by leaving out the only Englishman who understands the Australian conditions: Ben Stokes. The talented 23-year-old was the only player to thrive in Australia last summer. But England seem to have trouble remembering things.

England started their World Cup at the MCG and were utterly abysmal. They completely forgot how to take catches, with Chris Woakes dropping Aaron Finch on 0. The Aussie opener made the most of his second chance, scoring a magnificent hundred. Woakes dropped something a four-year-old would catch, a simple pop up to midwicket.

England then tossed up rubbish to Glenn Maxwell and Brad Haddin. Their death bowling was horrendous, conceding 111 runs off their final 10 overs. England then forgot how to chase big totals, consistently going at three or four runs per over until it was too late.

James Taylor is the only talented English player in Australia right now. Unlucky to be 98 not out, he lacked support from senior players like Ian Bell and Eoin Morgan.

Morgan has been constantly saying how terrible the Australians are and how England just have “bad days”. Absolute rubbish. If Australia are horrible, you lost to them, so what does that make you? How many bad days can you have?

Morgan himself has had a terrible patch of form, scoring 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 17, 46, and 27 from his past eight matches. That is an average of 11.5. He is supposed to lead by example as captain, but he fails to bat, fails to captain and can’t even sing his country’s national anthem.

In England’s second game, they forgot their cricket skills altogether in the face of the Tim Southee and Brendon McCullum show. England were baffled by textbook swing bowling by Southee, who helped himself to seven wickets. He bowled beautifully, but there was nothing new about his approach. Considering England actually have a couple of genuine swing bowlers, it surprises me how foolish they looked.

Then McCullum decided to give the crowd some catching practice and belted everything into the stands. Steven Finn, who had apparently turned into superman playing against a mediocre Indian team, had an economy of 4.25 runs per ball! McCullum cemented his spot as one of the most ruthless batmen in the world, while England cemented their spot as a cricketing nation that can’t play cricket.

As criticism mounted, England did what they’ve always done: nothing. They refused to play their best batmen Alex Hales and ignored calls to drop the inexperienced Gary Ballance.

England then got nervous playing minnows Scotland. They won, but it was nothing to celebrate. They should have won by more.

Sri Lanka were next in on the action, taking England apart with quality batting. Joe Root took on the Sri Lankans, but lacked support, much like Taylor’s innings in Game 1. England were tossing up terrible deliveries to the Sri Lankans in the final overs and lost the game.

England has failed in 2015. They are horrendous in every aspect of cricket. They are so bad they will give up their quarter final place to Bangladesh.

I bet it’ll be just another “bad day”.