'Rest-and-rotation policy has cost them Test matches' - Nasser Hussain believes England should press the reset button

England has failed to win the urn for the third consecutive time and two matches are still left in the ongoing Ashes. They lost the Boxing Day Test by an innings and 14 runs as the batters were pretty ineffective in the second innings. The England team has been criticized by former players and some even called for removal of Joe Root and Chris Silverwood from their respective positions.

England adopted a rest and rotation policy at the start of 2021 to make sure their players stay fresh amid bio-bubble life. But it didn’t bore great results for them. The English team won the Test series against Sri Lanka and then suffered a series of losses both in the home and away conditions.

Former England captain Nasser Hussain believes that the team should look to play the best 11 players from the squad in all the Test matches and the rest and rotation policy can take the backseat for a while. In his column for The Daily Mail, Hussain mentioned that the team should approach each Test as a must-win game.

“The immediate need is for the England Test team to have a reset on how they do things. England has had to look after their players in Covid times, both physically and mentally, but for all their good intentions, the extent of their long-term planning and rest-and-rotation policy has cost them Test matches,” Hussain wrote.

“The initial reset has to see them looking down at the pitch ahead of any Test and selecting the best team for that game as if it were the World Test Championship final. Pick and play as if the score was 2-2. and they have to win to clinch the Ashes,” he further wrote.

England should address the issues with batting: Naseer Hussain

Hussain believes that batting is one issue that the England team needs to work on. He also mentioned that teams have struggled to play good cricket in foreign countries apart from India.

“It’s unfair to say everything in our game is rubbish. Travelling and playing away is difficult for all countries, with the possible exception of India. But, of course, we do have serious problems, specifically red-ball batting and spinners in red-ball cricket.

“Australia is a hard enough place to go at the best of times without the mistakes Root and Chris Silverwood have made. And I agreed with Mike Atherton when he said he had never seen English First-Class batting at such a low ebb. That is the fundamental issue to be addressed,” Hussain wrote.