The England cricket teams are used to being destroyed by a tour of Australia.
They lost the urn for the fifth time in six tours, this time in record-breakingly swift fashion.
It took Australia just 852.3 overs to win the third and final Test at home, the smallest amount of cricket ever required for Australia to win the series.
England supporters of a statistically sensitive disposition should look away now, as I attempt to put numerical perspective on a savage series defeat at the end of a year of startling decline...
Equalling losses are new.
The nine defeats suffered by England in the calendar year of 2021 is the most by any team.
England began the year with three wins, two in Sri Lanka and the first Test in India, which was the second Test victory by a visiting team there since 2012
England's sixth successive away victory was their first since World War One, and it was also the first time in a century that they had not lost an away game.
England have lost in their 12 Tests since, equalling Bangladesh's nine Test defeats in the same period.
Between January 1993 and March 1994 England lost 10 in a row.
It was an unfulfilled promise.
England have been knocked out for under 150 eight times this year.
A new generation of batting talent appeared over the previous 18 months.
In his first eight Tests, Dom Sibley had made two centuries. The Test winter of the year was apparently the breakthrough for Pope. Zak Crawley had a majestic, multifaceted 267 against Pakistan.
In addition, Ben Stokes had averaged over 50 in his previous 16 Tests, and in New Zealand he scored a century, more than any other home series leader.
England had started scoring 400 again seven times in 14 Tests up to and including their win in Chennai, having done so just once in their previous 23.
County cricket was being praised for generating players who could take England forward with confidence into the challenging year.
England have been dismissed for under 200 in 13 of the 12 Tests they have played since then.
England have been out for under 150 in eight of the last nine games. They have only passed 400 once, at Headingley, where they beat India 78 to 78.
It has been a year of startling, concerning failure for England because of the quality of the three bowling attacks that have inflicted these failures and the poor quality of the pitches in India that precipitated this collapse in England's batting.
It's a pity to consider that the two centurions in the first two Tests of the series - Marnus Labuschagne and Travis Head - as well as the top scorer in the third Test at the MCG - Marcus Harris - have benefited.
Failure to convert.
The England batters scored 25 runs in a single year. Ten of his 18 were half-centuries, including six three-figure scores. The rest made 22 fifties from 73 scores of 25, with one hundred - Burns against New Zealand.
The quarter-century is not celebrated as much. Let us grasp at straws in times of need. Raising the bat to waist height would be an appropriate gesture on reaching 25 to give England supporters something to cheer about.
England's quarter-to-half-century conversion rate is the worst by any team other than Bangladesh, who have been in Test cricket since 1999. England's 25-to-50 conversion rate is worse than any team that has played 10 Tests in a year.
Does this matter? And (c) If so, why?
You are welcome to give your own answers, but I think the correct responses are as much as England's duck acquisition rate and ORTPWTO.
The conversion rate of 25s to 50s is 49%, and 25s to 100s is 13%, which is a good indication of how difficult Test batting has been over the past five years.
The teams have maintained their numbers around the trends. England have been reaching 25 the most difficult phase of the Test, but getting out from 25 to 49 more often than other teams.
They might need a concentration coach. Or maybe it is that the technical frailties in England's non-Root batters are going to emerge sooner or later in aninnings.
The root is alone.
The only England player who has averaged more with the bat in the next two years is Joe Root.
In a year in which he was England's top scorer with 1,708 runs, Joe Root was 3.32 times as productive as his next highest scorer, Burns, and the margin of superiority by a Test batter over his next most productive team-mate was unprecedented.
Burns' average went from a moderate 28 to an unspectacular 27 but most others went from 52 to 10 and from 43 to 21.
It has been one of England's worst batting years.
A couple of quickfire statistics to take you into the new and better year for England Test cricket.
England has only two players who have posted half-centuries.
It is only the fifth time in Test history that a team have had less than three half-centurions after the first three Tests of a series, and the second in theAshes, with Joe Root and Dawid Malan remaining the only two.
Three of England's 15 Tests this year did not feature a duck.
England's openers finished with 14 ducks, a record by a large margin.
In the last 10 years, England's openers have averaged one opener-duck per 4.5 Tests.
