A mid-tour jaunt by the England cricket team to a Queensland beach town was covered gleefully by Australia’s tabloid newspapers, which splashed a shirtless Ben Stokes across their pages amid taunting headlines.
“On back foot, England bails to the beach”, one read. “Life’s a beach, even for the sinking Poms,” added another. “Sun’s out, runs out”, offered a third, alongside a photo of Stokes’s tattooed biceps.
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“Having a Bazball at Noosa!”, the top of the front page of Brisbane’’s Courier Mail declared, alongside coverage of Jamie Oliver’s best Christmas ham recipe and Australia’s controversial ban of under-16s from social media which comes into force on Wednesday.
A double page spread inside the news section noted the “wounded” English team couldn’t altogether avoid cricket on their getaway, as Stokes was pictured striding behind a young beachgoer with bat in hand.
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England lost inside two days in Perth in the first Test, and went down by eight wickets in Brisbane. The 2-0 scoreline means the tourists must win in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney if they are to regain the Ashes.
The West Australian – which had lampooned the team with the headline “Baz bawl” on their arrival in Perth – led with a photo of vice-captain Harry Brook, opener Zak Crawley and bowlers Brydon Carse, Will Jacks and Gus Atkinson drinking beer at the beachside Rococo Bistro & Bar.
“After gallivanting around golf courses in Perth and joyriding without helmets on E-scooters in Brisbane, England favoured rest and relaxation for their latest mid-series break,” the article read.
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The front page had pointed to the article with the headline: “‘Overprepared’: fails pub test”, citing coach Brendon McCullum’s explanation for the defeat at the Gabba that the players may have overtrained.
“I’m a horse racing man and you wouldn’t just keep doing the same thing with your horse – you’d send it around in figure eights or over the little jumps, just to switch it up a bit,” the coach said on Sunday. “So we’ll look at some alternative methods over the next few days.”
Relaxation appears to have part of a plan proving irresistible to Antipodean newsrooms. Even broadsheet The Australian weighed in, with more photos of a topless Stokes on the beach on page three, above the headline “Ashes in ruin: Poms take beach sabbatical”.
The England team have been afforded time off before they travel to Adelaide for the third Test, beginning on 17 December.
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