- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
First things first, I’ll offer a defence for England’s performance to this point.
(leave a significant space here).
That there is nothing to say, nothing that can even be tentatively pencilled into the ‘pros’ column, tells you all you will ever need to know.
I could think of numerous words to illustrate my point but where do you start?
The annals are full of dire English performances, far too many of them on Australian soil unfortunately, and this can be put, if not at the top then pretty close to it.
Before the Gabba mauling, the tourists were justifiably favourites with the bookies, had by far the better form heading into the contest and man for man appeared to be a superior outfit.
Given what has unfolded that is mightily hard to fathom and an all too convincing impression of the sides from the 1990s that showed up only to be hung, drawn and generally quartered by a powerful host is being acted out.
That this isn’t an Australian side for the ages only makes it more painful to witness and serves to show up the depths to which Alastair Cook’s men have plummeted.
If they can find a way back from here then they will deserve all the plaudits that will be offered because it will be nothing short of a modern-day miracle.
The only, and this is fairly important, problem is they have no-one in the form to really compete let alone triumph.
Ian Bell, Michael Carberry and Stuart Broad are all performing competently but what good does this do in the face of an onslaught? And that is a rhetorical question.
Inquests will be undertaken – they’ve already begun in some quarters – as to whether this English side have passed their sell-by date and a convincing argument could be given to support this theory, but this is the here and now and not a cold February morning at the ECB’s headquarters.
So where do they go from here?
Changes will be made as teams in this position rarely stay as they are and this is evidence of the Australians having them exactly where they want them.
Throughout the series just passed, Darren Lehmann had no firm grasp on what his best XI was and the endless switching of personnel only muddied the waters.
But come the third Test at the WACA, the XI on show here will have been altered to some degree as a foothold is sought.
Four seamers, no all-rounder, an extra batsman are the obvious questions but that could be chasing the hare rather than applying any logic.
England have succeeded in recent years because of a stable selection policy and a very efficient method.
Two poor showings, admittedly dreadfully poor ones, shouldn’t result in a changing of the guard but they will have to reverse an historical trend as faltering empires have never been famous for their wise decision-making.
But this is a team that is struggling to maintain its role as a seriously dominant force in the game and the other day, in the face of the irresistible force that is currently Mitchell Johnson, they wouldn’t have even known where to begin to look for the word immovable.
It is hard to escape the realisation that in Anglo-Australian battles the tide has started to turn and if defeat should occur at Adelaide’s glitzy new football stadium then England’s cause in this particular series will be almost lost.
There is still hope that my countrymen can win two of the last three.
I just can’t see it happening.