Ashley Giles spinning an Ashes line that fools no-one - Chris Waters

It sounds like the sort of document best consigned to a wheelie bin – the container to which Giles was famously compared by the commentator Henry Blofeld on account of his lumbering bowling style.

No good ever came from such reviews, save to confirm their futility.

An awful lot of time and money could be saved if the England and Wales Cricket Board simply consulted just about any article written by just about any journalist in the past few weeks highlighting the folly of a county system that puts red-ball cricket at the foot of the priority list.

Another appellation once attributed to Giles was ‘The King of Spain’, an unfortunate error on merchandise emblazoned for his benefit year.

The mugs in question should, of course, have read ‘The King of Spin’, itself an hilarious non sequitur that provoked a certain Juan Carlos of Madrid to harrumph: “I do not know who this Ashley Giles is, but I can assure him that I am the King of Spain.”

Yet now, long after he consigned his whites to the nearest wheelie bin and threw in his lot with the refuse otherwise known as the ECB top brass, it seems that Giles has indeed become ‘The King of Spin’ to judge by comments made over at the Sydney Test.

For as Australia closed a rain-affected first day on 126-3, looking to go 4-0 up with one game to go, Giles reeled off a list of excuses that would embarrass the most shameless side-stepping politician, let alone an exponent of the “Sorry, Miss, the dog ate my homework” line of defence.

In a nutshell, this amounted to…

1) We never win in Australia anyway – “look, in 34 years, we’ve come here and won once”.

2) There’s no point sacking me or anyone else – “you can change me, change the head coach, change the captain, but we’re only setting up future leaders for failure”.

3) Although four Test wins out of 15 in 2021 was pretty dire – “in the 90s that was accepted as normal for England leaderships, and they got away with it”.

“We set our standards much higher than that,” Giles clarified, before going on to say that England had prioritised players’ mental well-being during these Covid times, as if the poor souls were struggling to get by in some tower block as opposed to trousering circa £1m a year for playing a game.

“Performance has almost been the last thing we’ve had to think about,” added Giles, stopping short only of encouraging England’s supporters to send medals – and perhaps even more money – in the post.

“Have we got the game on?” he protested. “Have we tried to keep the players fit and well? Yes, we’ve tried. And the well-being issue is a massive one.”

Of course, Covid has provided challenges for Giles and the players, and bubble life is not easy, but England are struggling in Test cricket for a simple reason – the ECB have followed the bottom line for years, which basically means more white-ball and less red-ball emphasis.

The County Championship has itself been treated like a wheelie bin, shoved to the side of the tower block in April and September for collection and then kept out of sight in the prime summer months.

Indeed, you could start and end your Ashes review more or less there. The system, and those behind it, is the biggest problem.

At least there was succour of sorts for Giles, Sir Andrew Strauss, Tom Harrison, Mo Babat and all those dreadfully important people at the ECB whose salaries are worth every penny and more in the opening skirmishes at the SCG, where rain permitted just 46.5 overs.

Although it looked a bit dodgy at 111-1, a total that would have compelled the former umpire David Shepherd to jump up and down like a cat on a hot tin wheelie bin, a couple of late wickets put a better gloss on events as England clung in there after losing the toss.

James Anderson had Marcus Harris edging to Joe Root at first slip, and then Mark Wood had Marnus Labuschange caught behind. Earlier, David Warner fell to nemesis Stuart Broad, caught at second slip by Zak Crawley.

England bowled well and kept things tight, setting up the proverbial ‘Big First Hour’ on day two with Steve Smith and the recalled Usman Khawaja the men in occupation when those seismic 60 minutes commence (all subsequent play, of course, will be completely irrelevant).

That more rain is forecast might at least prevent England from suffering a 5-0 whitewash, assuming that they do not rally themselves to heights of expertise not previously seen on the tour.

But any fightback now is effectively meaningless, no more useful than kicking your feet about a bit in objection while your head is being positioned in the guillotine.

‘The King of Spain’ has much to ponder when he pens his review into England’s ‘kings of pain’.