England wallow in it

The Sun has it's say

England wallowed in its shock loss to Australia, the local media accusing their team of snatching defeat from the jaws of a morale winning victory.

"The dismal thing for England fans is the manner of defeat. The batsmen, as Lawrence Booth wrote here, had fear in their eyes," said Guardian commentator Tim De Lisle.

That was courteous. According to the Daily Mail's Mike Dickinson it was a spineless surrender "It took 16 years to regain the urn and it now looks like they will be conceded in just 16 months - or, to be more precise, the two hours of schoolboy panic that prevailed here yesterday.

"To be at this game was like sitting through four fifths of a Harry Potter film only to find, inexplicably, that the show reel gets changed and is replaced with the closing stages of The Exorcist."

The choker theme also gets a good work out: "The England cricket tour is in crisis as the team suffered a collective mental breakdown... after contriving to lose a match from a position of near total dominance," writes Cricket commentator, Simon Barnes from the Times.

And worst of all said Barnes: "Australia are utterly rampant, every bit of their habitual swagger and condescension is back. England lost by six wickets, but it is the manner of the defeat, rather than the margin, that is so peculiarly distressing. "

De Lisle joined the many knives now out for coach Duncan Fletcher: "But their paralytic caution didn't come out of nowhere. It was there in their selection, too. This year, they have unearthed a star and a match winner in the young spinner Monty Panesar, yet they haven't picked him against Australia, because Fletcher wanted his Ashes winners around him, even if they were rusty (Ashley Giles) or out of form (Geraint Jones)."

Less flattering was this reader of the Sun: "Why is this fart managing England?"

Along the same theme former England Captain, Ian Botham expressed his bewilderment:

“I am asking questions. A lot of people are asking questions. Is Monty Panesar here or has he gone home?

“I am totally confused. I was confused at the start of the series and I am even more confused now.

“I am not taking anything away from Australia, they have been magnificent, but we have two players who have hardly played any cricket in a year - Jimmy Anderson and Ashley Giles, two key bowlers.

Former England batsman Geoffrey Boycott said in his Telegraph column: "Make no mistake about it, the Ashes are gone. If you support England, don't kid yourself that they might come back. No England team in history have recovered from 2-0 down against Australia. And let's face it, on current form, this is not a side capable of making history."

"This defeat is so humiliating and soul-destroying that I don't see how they can come back," said Boycott.

Martin Johnson for the same paper picked up on the inability to play Warne: "There are two ways to play Warne, and somewhere between their two innings England decided to abandon the Fred Astaire routine which had served them so well for the first two days, and switch to the kind of footwork that would have embarrassed a boxful of battery hens."

And as for the Ashes, Johnson put it this way:"There's a new Monopoly game here in Australia, based on a cricketing theme, and they might now consider launching something similar for the English market. "Ashes 2005 – Advance (in open-topped bus) To Trafalgar Square". "Ashes 2006 – Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect £200. Go Straight To The Tower of London".

And of course the Australian media has not missed the opportunity. Best was Greg Baum from the Age: "One bad decision, the first of the match, against England opener Andrew Strauss, prompted a constriction in teammates' throats.

"Quickly, it became outright panic. Like medieval royals with syphilis, they went suddenly mad. England lost its last nine wickets for 60, the same England that made 6-551 declared in the first innings."