Marcus Trescothick Backs England’s Approach to Ashes Preparation

The upcoming Ashes series is a tough challenge for the England team. They are touring Australia for the blockbuster series after a long period of time. Their limited preparation ahead of the start of the Ashes has attracted a bit of criticism lately. However, the assistant coach of England, Marcus Trescothick, has backed his team's plans, saying that it is the exact “way of the modern game.”

In the past, the entire schedule of Ashes tours was quite long. Before the start of the series, plenty of warm-up fixtures used to be scheduled for the visiting teams. It allowed players to understand the conditions, and prepare themselves accordingly for the main matches.

In comparison to that, the upcoming Ashes tour is quite different. England will not participate in any warm-up games, instead, they will focus more on the intra-squad matches to prepare themselves for the series opener.

"It's the way that the series are generally done - for us and for other opposition teams - around the world nowadays. With the volume of cricket that's played [elsewhere], you don't have the time for preparations like potentially playing two or three first-class games, which has happened in the past.” said Marcus Trescothick while speaking to the reporters in Perth.

He backed the decision by saying that England have been playing continuous cricket lately. He added that many players were recently involved in the New Zealand series, while some have travelled straight from England after participating in the domestic season.

"I think you generally roll with a prep game, or some facilities - whatever you have available - and you go from there. Of course, most of the guys have been playing in New Zealand for us. Some of the guys have come out from England, but it's the way of the modern game nowadays." said Marcus Trescothick.

A prominent cricketing voice of England, Michael Vaughan, has recently said that playing on a club ground with low bounce does not offer ideal preparation for the Ashes. Giving an answer to this argument, Marcus Trescothick said that England’s training in nets were quite great and the team enjoyed world-class facilities in Australia to prepare for the first Ashes test.

"We've had facilities here with the nets, and obviously then the nets out in the middle, and then we've got the preparation game here as well.” said Marcus Trescothick.

He further said that the England team will have three days of training at Optus Stadium in Perth. This will give them plenty of know-how about the pitches, as well as the ground conditions. Keeping that in view, they are currently happy with the designated training schedule.

"In my day, playing at the Waca was very unique and very different, but you prepare yourself for those sorts of changes in facilities and pitches as you go along. We'll have three days of prep at Optus, just to get used to pitches and we go along with that, and we'll go from there. We're very happy at the moment." said Marcus Trescothick.

Backing Trescothick’s view, a similar type of statement was given by Ben Duckett, who arrived in Australia just a few days ago. He said that England are not short of game time, as they have been playing cricket continuously over the past few weeks.

“We play a lot of cricket at the minute, and we've obviously just come off the back of our summer. We're certainly not lacking any gametime. I don't make those plans, but I'm pretty happy getting ready in the nets. If we're facing Jofra [Archer], Woody [Mark Wood] and those guys every day, I think that will be pretty good prep." said Ben Duckett.

The first Ashes test in Perth is approaching fast, and both teams are finalizing their plans for this electrifying contest. It would be interesting to see how England’s Bazball plays out in Perth, as this aggressive approach is still untested on fast, bouncy Australian surfaces.