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29 March 2024

Australia can’t win back Ashes - fans’ poll

Most fans want former spin king Shane Warne as the coaching replacement for Nielsen. (FILE)

Published
By AFP
A majority of Australian cricket fans in a newspaper poll published on Sunday say Australia cannot win back the Ashes and want Shane Warne as the national team coach.
An online poll of more than 6,000 fans conducted by the Sunday Telegraph blame the selectors for Australia’s slide to fifth on the Test rankings and 74 percent of them believe that Michael Clarke should not become Australia’s next Test captain.
The poll showed that fans have lost faith in the national team after a run of seven international defeats in all forms of cricket.
Almost 57 percent of those polled believed that Ricky Ponting’s team will not retrieve the Ashes they lost to England last year.
One fan wrote: “What a disastrous build-up to the Ashes this is turning out to be,” while another said: “Where’s our mongrel? We were famous for it, now we couldn’t knock a maggot off a chop.”
The pessimism comes despite the fact that England have not won an Ashes series in Australia since 1986-87.
The poll took a harsh view of the national selectors for the current malaise, with 90 percent claiming the panel is not doing a good job, while 68 percent delivered the same scathing verdict on coach Tim Nielsen.
Almost 48 percent of fans want former spin king Shane Warne as the coaching replacement for Nielsen.
Warne has been a vocal critic as the Australian team has been in decline since his retirement from Test cricket in 2007.
One-day allrounder Cameron White is the preferred option with the fans to take over from Ricky Ponting, 35, when he retires as Test captain, according to the poll.
White has 29 percent support from the poll to be the next Test skipper, while current vice-captain Clarke is preferred by 28 percent.
The Ashes series gets underway in Brisbane on November 25.