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On the face of it, a 5-0 drubbing in a five-match one-day international series looks pretty poor. Add in the fact the defeat was handed out by the oldest of foes and the picture appears ever the darker.
If a bit more context is mixed in – banned players, behavioural issues, an underwhelming run of form – the gloom only deepens.
A batting line-up, despite a few bright spots, which fails to consistently produce and a bowling attack shy of the required standard will never be a recipe for sustained success, and so it proved.
By the time Jos Buttler was applying the finishing touches at Old Trafford to an England triumph, snatched from what surely should have been a consolation Australian victory, the scalpels were already nice and sharp for the inevitable dissection.
In no particular order, some reasons put forward for defeat include the absence of numerous first-choice players, the lack of relevant 50-over experience, the dumbing-down of the domestic competition, a callow captain, and a muddled selectorial approach.
There is certainly something to be said for the first mentioned, the second is no different now to previous years, the third is worth looking at, the fourth is an easy target and the fifth will always be wheeled out when results are poor.
But it is a modern-day trend that the extremes of opinion are far more pronounced than ever before with the spectre of social media loitering like an unshakeable shadow.
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You only to have to take a quick glance at the coverage of the ongoing World Cup in Russia to get an idea of how comment and the narrative veers wildly from any kind of middle ground; what one was bad is now a disgrace and what was good is now great.
Not a new phenomenon by any means but consideration is now taking far more of a back seat. Quite simply, it’s never as bad as is made out and neither is it as good.
And that brings me back to the efforts of the Australians and, to a lesser extent, England.
The former weren’t expected to win and the latter were, so no surprises there; likewise with how the respective line-ups went about their business.
The tourists were relatively inexperienced and that was obvious, the hosts had a clear idea of how they were to go about their business and did exactly that.
But the desire to look a good distance into the future is an itch that pundits just can’t help scratching and that means, with the World Cup 12 months away, England are now favourites and Australia anything but.
Putting patriotism to one side for a moment, Eoin Morgan’s side should fancy their chances and rightly so, but tournament play has never really been an England speciality, and certainly not since reaching the 1992 final, so any excitement should be calmed a fraction.
England’s captain Eoin Morgan (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
Yes they are a completely different outfit to the one who embarrassed themselves in 2015 and they are playing a dynamic game that epitomises the influence of the shortest format, but a better indication of their readiness will come after they have faced India in the next few weeks.
On the flip side, Australia have little in the way of ODI form in recent months but the one thing they do well is show up when there is a significant prize to be claimed.
And can a definitive judgement really be formed of a side minus two of their better batsmen in Steve Smith and David Warner, a decent allrounder in Mitchell Marsh and their three premier seamers in Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins? No need to answer that.
The back-up may not be the strongest but they are hardly the only side with that issue and a schedule-filling, money-making jaunt that probably shouldn’t have existed won’t count for a great deal when the ten-strong line-up gathers next summer.
So there’s no need to get too down and as much necessity to get overly excited.
Now, if you don’t mind, I’m off to watch the football as the 6-1 thrashing of Panama has virtually guaranteed that England will win the World Cup.