In test cricket, there’s no place like home

It has been a pretty ghastly winter and the best that may be said of it is that by far the worst of it is now in the past. The sooner England can get the hell out of Australia the better. It is true that few people, I think, viewed this tour with any kind of inflated optimism; nevertheless the manner of England’s defeats – after an initial promising two days in Brisbane – has been grindingly dispiriting. When even Glenn McGrath is reduced to saying, in effect, ‘Cheer up cobbers, you were more competitive than last time you ventured here’ you know the game is up. 

True, Steve Smith enjoyed a halcyon summer and, in Australia, David Warner is a formidable batsman. True, too, that Australia’s attack hunted well together. Only Jimmy Anderson would make it into a combined side and even then only if you were playing (as you should) five bowlers.