A stunned England woke on Sunday to savage criticism after their meek capitulation in the first Ashes Test, branded “brainless” by batting great Geoffrey Boycott after their cavalier approach backfired. 

Ben Stokes’s men lost the opening battle in Perth inside two days. Leading into Perth, Stokes called the former players who had criticised England’s low-key build-up as “has-beens” — and that came back to bite him. “Well, from this has-been the message is simple: when you keep throwing away Test matches by doing the same stupid things, it is impossible to take you seriously,” Boycott said in a newspaper column.