‘Are you absolutely joking? Where was the spark?’: Shambolic England slammed after Day 1 at Lord’s

Australia defied the odds and dominated England on day 1 of the 2nd Ashes test at Lord’s.
This was after England won the toss and Australia were invited to bat first on a grassy strip. James Anderson and Stuart Broad produced swing and nicks off the bats of Australia openers David Warner and Usman Khawaja but they were dropped.
Joe Root added to England’s woes in the morning when he dropped a laces-high catch of Khawaja off Anderson.
Ollie Pope at fourth slip made an even bigger mess dropping Warner on 20 off Broad, who missed claiming Warner a 16th time.
As a result, Australia, after enduring the tough morning posted a remarkable 339/5 stumps. Steve Smith anchored century stands with Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head after Warner and Khawaja frustrated England in the morning.
This led to former England cricketers slamming their side for their shoddy performance.
Former England cricketer and commentator Kevin Pietersen said,”Not a lot has caught my eye from an English perspective … It’s been shambolic. Absolutely Shambolic.”
“I’ve played Ashes cricket, I’ve played nearly 30 Test matches against Australia. The Australians were outside to bat before the English bowlers.
“The English bowlers this morning should have been on those stairs saying we want to bowl at Australia. We’re desperate to bowl at Australia. These two Australian batters are out there waiting for England.

“Are you joking? Are you absolutely JOKING?” 😤
Kevin Pietersen is NOT happy with England today and says it has been ‘shambolic’ 😳 pic.twitter.com/eTJ50UBTnm
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 28, 2023
“They’re the ones that should be in the room saying, ‘No, no, we don’t want to bat,’ and it’s all too easy and it’s all too nice.”
“I hope they’re in that dressing room now and the England coaches are giving them the biggest hammering in saying it’s not good enough.
“It’s absolutely not good enough.
Former England captain Nasser Hussain also hit out at the Three Lions and said, “They were subdued despite winning the toss and there was a real lack of intensity to their bowling attack – the speeds of each of the five seam bowlers was down and they didn’t bowl bouncers to change things up – while the fielding was sloppy and they missed catches.“Where was the spark?
“Where was the urgency? When the Just Stop Oil protest happened, there was a lot of chat and then, when it rained they strolled off and were still upstairs when the Australian batters were waiting on the steps at the bottom of the pavilion.In those drizzly conditions, if the umpires call you back on, you want to be rushing on straight away as a fielding team, bowling as much as possible,” he added.