England implode in Adelaide heat

CRICKET/Ashes series: England, it seems, are sunk. The truly catastrophic nature of the six-wicket defeat yesterday will haunt Andrew Flintoff's side for the remainder of this tour and way beyond. No one goes two matches down to an Australian side of this quality and experience in a five-Test series on their own turf and comes back even to draw.

So shot will England be, so utterly devastated that a position of dominance could be thrown back in their faces with such force, that it is hard to see how the captain and the array of support staff can regroup the team in the week or so available before the third Test begins in Perth tomorrow week. The pitch there, so it is said, is as moribund as that at Adelaide Oval, and so is that at Melbourne.

By Christmas, though, it may be all over.

This will hurt them more than the heavy defeat in the first Test ever did. From that match, they took comfort in the improved performance as the match wore on. They brought their favourite "positives" with them to Adelaide and showed Australia, just as they had done at Edgbaston last year, that they could take a setback square on the jaw and then stand tall and slug it out. There are no positives to take out of the final day, however, short of Paul Collingwood's back-to-the-wall battling for more than three hours as the edifice came crashing down around him.

The post-mortem will be long. Did England go in with the best side?

Flintoff believes so anyway, and with it he gained both a first-innings lead and an overall lead of 107 at one stage in the first hour yesterday with nine second-innings wickets still in hand. He had no cause to query his selection then.

But hindsight will tell him that his bowling attack has weaknesses, specifically James Anderson, who has swung the ball a fraction but comes on at a nice driveable trajectory or cuttable and pullable length. Sajid Mahmood should replace him.

Against that, the idea of Panesar the panacea is gaining such a groundswell that it would be no surprise to see the massed millions marching through the streets of London demanding his inclusion for Perth.

It may well happen too, should do probably, given the situation in the series, although Ashley Giles's first-innings runs appeared to have helped give his side leeway in the match. Dropping Ricky Ponting on 35 in the first innings, which if caught would have left Australia floundering at 78 for four, was neither a good career move nor particularly helpful.

His bowling was steadfast on a pitch that was never going to offer him much support, but in Perth England will need more than that.

An hour or so of mayhem yesterday morning cut a swathe through their ambition of playing out an easy draw, as the prestidigitator-supreme, Shane Warne, gained such a hold on England that they could scarcely breathe, while Stuart Clark, Brett Lee and, right at the end, Glenn McGrath made the old ball reverse-swing this way and that in a manner they were unable to manage before they persuaded Troy Cooley to come home.

Warne bowled 27 overs from the cathedral end yesterday, with a searing hot dragon's breath of a northerly wind behind him and acres of scarred rough in front. The result was four wickets for 29, and the transformation of the match and series.

Cricket against Australia is never over until the fat boy spins.

The reality of England's decline, on a pitch that before play began on the final day had produced more than 1,100 runs for just a paltry 17 wickets is stark. Only three sides in Test history, one of them Australia on this very ground three years ago, have made more runs in the opening innings of a match and lost. None has done so having declared as Flintoff did at 551 for six, late on the second evening, thereby trading further runs for the wicket of Justin Langer, who had scored 182 runs against England in Brisbane.

The disparity between England's first innings and their second-innings 129, a matter of 422 runs, places them eighth in an all-time list, but only one of those involved decline rather than improvement, and that on an uncovered Melbourne pitch 96 years ago. This was a horror.

As collapses go, the Ottoman Empire may have the edge, but this was an England special circa 1990 or thereabouts when such things seemed commonplace. If it was precipitated by a poor decision against Andrew Strauss - Steve Bucknor made two particular decisions here that were of the very highest calibre but this, an alleged bat-and-pad, was not one of them - then came the real damage.

The dismissal that gave Australia impetus and hope, so Warne said later, was the run-out of Ian Bell, who failed to respond to a call from Collingwood for a single to backward point and failed to beat Michael Clarke's throw.

If Bell was at fault for not heeding the call, then Collingwood may not have computed that Clarke is left-handed. It made all the difference. In the space of nine overs England descended from 69 for one to 77 for five and, despite the resistance of Collingwood and some support from the tail, which lasted until tea, the game was up.

England had both openers as they tried to blaze a trail to the 168 target, and later dismissed Ponting and Damien Martyn, who steered what may be his last ball in Test cricket to Strauss at slip.

But there is no finer finisher than Michael Hussey, and 19 balls remained when he stroked the winning run through the covers, his unbeaten 61 a model of composure.

Scoreboard

(at Adelaide Oval)

England - First innings 551 for 6 dec

Australia - First innings 513

ENGLAND - Second innings

(overnight 59 for 1)

A Strauss c Hussey b Warne 34

A Cook c Gilchrist b Clark 9

I Bell run out 26

P Collingwood not out 22

K Pietersen b Warne 2

A Flintoff c Gilchrist b Lee 2

G Jones c Hayden b Lee 10

A Giles c Hayden b Warne 0

M Hoggard b Warne 4

S Harmison lbw b McGrath 8

J Anderson lbw b McGrath 1

Extras (b-3, lb-5, w-1, nb-2) 11

Total (all out, 73 overs) 129

Fall of wickets: 1-31, 2-69, 3-70, 4-73, 5-77, 6-94, 7-97, 8-105, 9-119, 10-129.

Bowling: Lee 18-3-35-2 (nb-2); McGrath 10-6-15-2 (w-1); Warne 32-12-49-4; Clark 13-4-22-1.

AUSTRALIA - Second innings

J Langer c Bell b Hoggard 7

M Hayden c Collingwood b Flintoff 18

R Ponting c Strauss b Giles 49

M Hussey not out 61

D Martyn c Strauss b Flintoff 5

M Clarke not out 21

Extras (b-2, lb-2, w-1, nb-2) 7

Total (for 4 wkts, 32.5 overs)168

Fall of wickets: 1-14, 2-33, 3-116, 4-121.

Did not bat: A Gilchrist, S Warne, B Lee, S Clark, G McGrath.

Bowling: Hoggard 4-0-29-1; Flintoff 9-0-44-2 (nb-2); Giles 10-0-46-1; Harmison 4-0-15-0 (w-1); Anderson 3.5-0-23-0; Pietersen 2-0-7-0.

Result: Australia won by 6 wkts.

Man of the match: Ricky Ponting (Aus).