English cricket died in Melbourne on December 28, 2021.
A large circle of friends and acquaintances are sad. I am sad.
The body will be cremated and the ashes will stay in Australia.
Maybe this latest England defeat at the hands of Australia isn't being greeted with the same disappointment as the loss at The Oval in 1882? The tourists have been beaten once more because they have been beaten before by England.
The way in which the England Test team have surrendered is a stark sign of their state of disrepair.
It was the psychiatrist who said that grief comes in five stages.
It is necessary to have watched England in recent years.
Denial is stage one.
England has been in decline for the last decade, a mediocre side hiding in plain sight.
Denying has been aided by a long home record and the individual brilliance of a few world-class players.
There were signs. Only two teams have been beaten away from home since the beginning of the year, Sri Lanka and South Africa, and both of them have relied on James Anderson.
The cracks have started to open in the last year. It was the worst home summer since 1999 with one win in 12 Tests. England lost nine matches in a calendar year for the first time.
English cricket has a lot to do with an Ashes defeat. Two years ago, Australia was denied the urn by a miracle by Ben Stokes.
It is all bare now. The denial can no longer continue.
Stage two is Anger.
There are many reasons for England's overall slide, including a lack of preparation, injuries, and Pat Cummins' piercing blue eyes.
Most of the anger is directed at the domestic system that is thought to leave batters ill-equipped to cope with the demands of Test cricket. "The Hundred", "ECB", "county" and "Tests" were all popular on Tuesday.
It is not as simple as blaming it all on the county calendar for the difference between facingDarren Stevens on a sticky dog at Canterbury in April and Mitchell Starc shoving the ball up your nostrils at the Gabba.
It's not a problem for England's batters to play little or no red-ball cricket outside of the Test arena.
The first-class game gives players the chance to put together a decent body of work in order to earn a Test call-up.
Dom Sibley made nine hundreds across two years before his England selection, whileRory Burns had five successive seasons of making more than 1,000 runs and Ollie Pope has taken advantage of batting at The Oval for most of his career.
Since being called up by England, all three have stood still. It is hard to argue that they have not improved.
Adam Lyth, Sam Robson, and Nick Compton all made hundreds early in their Test careers, before fading away.
The structure of the county is not perfect, but it wouldn't need much tweaking. Is it not a bigger concern that the backroom staff in England is not making the players better?
Bargaining stage three.
The embarrassing episode in English cricket can be compared to the first-round exit from the 2015 World Cup. The parallels have been noted by Root.
England took one-day cricket seriously and won the tournament in 2019.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and the bargain for that success has been a knock-on detriment to the Test team, either in the shape of the tank-sized gap between Jonny Bairstow's bat and pad, or the pursuit of a World Cup double which saw
Red-ball and white-ball success can be achieved at the same time. Australia and New Zealand have both won the T20 World Cup in the last six weeks, while New Zealand have won the 50-over and 20-over World Cup.
During the Covid era, England have played more than any other team.
When the results in India started to start to look bad, the team had to change players and keep the show on the road.
Stage four is about depression.
Depression can be caused by England's past, present or future.
The past? England have lost 21 of their 29 Tests away to India, Australia and New Zealand. In the past five years alone, they have been defeated in a single session on five occasions, one of which was by Ireland.
The present is trying to stay awake on dark, winter nights, only to have your dreams followed by Cummins, Starc and co. Burns' leg stump, Buttler's iron gloves, and another Australian fast bowler plucked from nowhere to deliver homing missiles at the edge of English bats.
The future? Try not to think about the options available to relieve the captaincy.
Don't think about what life will be like when Anderson retires.
Acceptance stage five
Accept that England are not very good at Test cricket and that more pain is on the way before things get better is the best way to deal with this.
England could be looking for a new captain, coach and majority of a team if they lose the final two Tests in Australia.
How many of the current line-up are going to face the West Indies in the spring? Mark Wood and probably Dawid Malan. England must see every series they are available for as a bonus if they want to be in the mix.
After that comes a home series against New Zealand and a rearranged fifth Test against India, both of which were better than England last summer.
England will not start as favorites in the New Zealand and Pakistan Test series in the winter of next year.
England will not have lost a home series to Australia in 22 years. The record would appear to be in serious jeopardy at the moment.
