{"id":2357,"date":"2026-03-30T09:39:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=2357"},"modified":"2026-03-30T09:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T09:39:00","slug":"c70dev82np9oat_mediumrssat_campaignrss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/?p=2357","title":{"rendered":"Darren Lehmann: England players do not play enough county cricket"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There was considerable criticism of England’s apparent lack of preparation for the series in Australia, both before and during the tour, with particular focus and controversy around the four-day break in Noosa, Queensland<\/a> after the first two Tests.<\/p>\n

England said the break had been scheduled for more than a year but there were reports of players drinking excessively.<\/p>\n

“If they had played those first two Shield games before the first two tests, then played the two Tests on the bounce, they actually needed a week off,” added Lehmann, who played five Tests against England during his playing career.<\/p>\n

“They’re all adults so they should know where they stand and look after themselves. And they are a lot more professional than we were in our day so I don’t subscribe that they carried on too much. <\/p>\n

“They’re not big drinkers and there’s nothing wrong with having a night out. I actually saw a couple of them for a coffee in Noosa and they were fine.<\/p>\n

“It’s more about the preparation for the Ashes where they didn’t play any county cricket in the back end of the summer and then they played a one-day series before the Ashes where they could have played a extra first-class game and that’s probably where it’s gone wrong.<\/p>\n

“They just need to be a bit more diligent in their preparation and what they’re trying to do and how they want to play.”<\/p>\n

The Test summer on these shores starts with the visit of New Zealand for a three-match series on 4 June with three more Tests to come in a series with Pakistan in August and September.<\/p>\n

Lehmann said he expects England to win both series, adding: “They’ll play exciting cricket.<\/p>\n

“They’ll score quickly. The wickets will be flat. They’ll oscillate between the two styles. <\/p>\n

“They played too aggressive in Australia. The problem is when the wicket does anything.<\/p>\n

“They’ll rethink how they want to play in different stages, making sure they’re prepared as best they can.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was considerable criticism of England’s apparent lack of preparation for the series in Australia, both before and during the tour, with particular focus and controversy around the four-day break in Noosa, Queensland after the first two Tests. England said the break had been scheduled for more than a year but there were reports of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[399,6,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","category-sports","category-us"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owspakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}