England great Geoffrey Boycott lashed out at the team management for sticking with opener Zak Crawley and new-ball bowler Chris Woakes. Boycott, who scored 8,114 runs at an average of 47.72 in Test cricket, said he does not see Crawley getting any better, while Woakes is past his prime. His latest tirade came in the wake of England’s 336-run thrashing by India at Edgbaston - India’s biggest-ever overseas Test win and their first at the venue - which helped them level the five-match series.

After two Tests, including four innings, Crawley managed merely 88 runs, with a highest score of 65. Woakes, meanwhile, has been one of the least effective English pacers in the series, claiming only three wickets. He went wicketless in India’s first innings at Leeds and their second innings at Edgbaston. Youngster Josh Tongue has so far been the highest wicket-taker of the series with 11 scalps.

“I don’t think he can change or get better. Batting is in the head, and the brain dictates how you approach batting: what shots you attempt, what balls you leave. His faults in technique and thinking are ingrained,” Boycott wrote in The Daily Telegraph.

“A leopard doesn’t change his spots, or maybe Zak does not want to change. He should be approaching his best years, but in 56 Tests he has learned nothing. One sparkling innings and numerous failures, with an average of 31, is not good enough.”

While Crawley was dismissed by Jasprit Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna in the first Test, it was Mohammed Siraj who got his wicket in the second Test. Analysing his playing style, Boycott said Crawley had seemingly changed his approach in the first Test.

“At Headingley, he played straight with the full face of the bat, left wide balls and let the ball come to him so he could keep his bat close to his pad,” he said.

Boycott added that Crawley lost his way and returned to his old habits in the Edgbaston Test.

“The two shots he got out to at Edgbaston [in the second Test] were awful. In the first innings, his feet got stuck in cement—neither forward nor back—and then he wafted at the ball to be caught at slip.

“Second innings, he batted on off stump and drove at a well-pitched-up ball two feet wide. He did not need to play it. He was on nought, had been fielding for five sessions, and his legs were tired, so should have been thinking about surviving that evening.”

Boycott also fired his salvo at Woakes, a veteran of 59 Tests who picked up 184 wickets. “It is counter-productive to keep the same guys in the team when they are past their sell-by date or not doing enough. Look at Chris Woakes. His pace is dropping, as you would expect as a seamer gets older. He has never been a wicket-taker abroad, where his record is poor. He is good—or has been good—on English pitches, and his batting has been handy at times as a safety valve when others have failed. His job should not be to shore up bad batting. Batsmen are there to score runs, and bowlers need to take wickets.”