A crucifixion in the City of Churches

Here we go again. Time for another round of that perennial game so wearily familiar to England cricket supporters: Hunt the Positives. It is a mean game because, most of the time, there aren’t any.

Certainly not today. England were abject in Adelaide. Scarcely any better than they had been in Brisbane. If, borrowing from Evelyn Waugh, we classify sides as Leading team, First-Rate team, Good Team and Team we must acknowledge that England, at present, rank as Team. And as Mr Waugh would have put it, Frankly, Team is pretty bad.

Less a team, in fact, and more a rabble. With the exception of Joe Root’s second-innings knock England can take nothing but misery with them as they cross the Nullarbor Plain to Perth. And who knows what horrors await them in that fair city? 

Cricket, we like to think, is a game especially suited to revealing character. England’s cricketers might care to ponder that on the flight to Perth.