Ashes verdict: England reap what they have sown to leave Test cricket in tatters

Assuming that Covid does not curtail the series, it is a safe bet that England will be slaughtered in Sydney and then hammered in Hobart for good measure.

The Ashes have gone – in under 12 days’ playing time – after England’s meek capitulation at the MCG.

To lose by an innings is one thing, but to lose by an innings after your opponents have scored 267... well, there are no expletives to do justice to the matter.

Worse, a 32-year-old debutant nicknamed ‘Barrel’ was the man who downed England on day three in Melbourne.

Scott Boland’s sobriquet makes him sound like the sort of beer-bellied figure on the village green who religiously returns 2-35 bowling unchanged from one end with unerringly accurate medium-pace, despite having supped 15 pints the previous night and scoffed a couple of kebabs.

Boland could have been forgiven for consuming 15 pints himself in celebration after returning the remarkable figures of 6-7 from four overs as England – 31-4 overnight – fell for 68 to lose by an innings and 14 runs.

Only the second indigenous Australian to play Test cricket for his country after Jason Gillespie, ‘Barrel’ rolled out the barrel in no uncertain terms to get the Australian party started.

As for England, where do you start? On the evidence of this series, they can’t bat, they can’t bowl and they can’t field, but one should never plagiarize a fellow journalist.

Yes, there have been some positives on the way and, if you give me a few weeks, I might remember what they are, but this was grim – 15-pint hangover grim – and a waste of time for spectators, broadcasters and sponsors alike.

For lurking behind any tendency towards gallows humour is a serious point that must not be forgotten – namely, the damage being done to Test cricket and to general interest in the longest format.

There are many England supporters, to judge by social media and the various forums, who are not remotely interested in this series – and who can blame them? Others have contacted me personally to say they have not bothered to subscribe to BT Sport to watch the live action because they have no interest in viewing a one-sided contest.

This is the knock-on effect to which the administrators, blinded by the cash cows of white-ball cricket, seem oblivious, having simply taken spectators for granted for so long.

Quite frankly, who does want to watch the Ashes, the pinnacle of our game, when England are so poor, their decision-making so poor, their selection so poor and their strategy so poor?

Australia are not even a great team; they have a handful of star players but by no means a full galaxy of them.

Twenty years ago, when the likes of Gillespie were in their glorious pomp, one could have accepted more results like this, performances like this, because that Australian side was just so good.

Now Australia are a very fine team, nothing more, yet the gulf in class is Sydney Harbour Bridge wide.

Of course, we all know what the problems are because some of us have been writing about them for years.

The marginalisation and culling of the County Championship, for instance, a tournament crammed into the start and end of the season to make room for yet more white-ball cricket in the prime summer months, thus depriving players of first-class cricket, practice and rhythm.

It is why we have no spin bowlers, for example, and no batsmen seemingly capable of constructing an innings apart from Joe Root. The only world-class spinner that England possess, our very own Adil Rashid, does not play first-class cricket any more and was treated terribly by England’s Test selectors when he did, to the extent that this wonderful bowler made only 19 Test appearances, a baffling waste of a brilliant, precious talent.

But we can write and talk as much as we like. Things will never change because the England and Wales Cricket Board are simply not interested in spectators or even in players – only in making as much money as possible.

They are extremely interested in trousering £2m bonuses for bringing in concepts such as The Hundred, and they basically go where the money goes, hanging out their tongues like salivating dogs.

Our administrators pay lip service to the Championship and to first-class cricket, cravenly insisting that it is their priority while at the same time doing everything they can to prove that the opposite is true.

One would have far more respect for them if they simply held their hands up and said: “You know what, everyone, it’s all about the brass, to be perfectly honest.” Instead, they pretend that they are genuinely interested.

English cricket, led by the grasping elite, has got exactly what it deserved from this Ashes campaign – nothing.