When he came in to bat late on Monday, after the nightwatchman had been out fourth ball, we watched the bizarre spectacle of England’s No 5 batsman refuse an easy single to protect the No 4 batsman from the bowling.Dire muttering broke out immediately, but the salvage operation on Stewart’s reputation began the next day – on the field, where, to his relief and to ours, he scored a positive 63 not out, staying in 148 minutes and facing 122 balls. There are a lot of disappointed people in our dressing-room, and somehow we’ve got to make sure we improve come Melbourne.”
On Monday, Stewart’s form had been a significant part of the problem. When he was asked in Adelaide, after losing to Australia by 205 runs, whether such a disintegration would not happen again, he did not deny the possibility, as David Lloyd, the team coach, might have done. “I’ve been a part of that when we’ve been losing here,” he said, “and we’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen again You’ve got to keep your heads up. The litany reads: Australia, 1990 and 1994; South Africa in 1995; West Indies, 1993 and earlier this year.

ALEC STEWART has been on enough tours with England to be acutely aware of the danger of battered morale leading to a fatal loss of self- esteem. It may not be beyond them but so far the only glimmer of light, the odd individual achievement apart, is that the next time England cricket needs a sponsor it should simply scan Yellow Pages for the manufacturers of white flags.. The common factor is that they all went down, which is no disgrace, but so far this lot are doing so without a fight.It will take hitherto unrevealed fortitude to get back into the series now. The points of England’s top seven batsmen are greater than those of the top seven on the last two, equally disastrous tours to Australia (possibly because they are playing seven batsmen this year), but the tail is the weakest of all nine Test countries and among the weakest of all.Total points for batsmen and bowlers show that this England is ahead of the 1990-91 vintage but behind the 1994-95 blend at a similar stage of the series So much for figures.

England shared a rubber once in the 18-year run (1-1 in 1938) and three times in the last year 12-year span.The outlook is grim this time and while Pricewaterhouse Cooper Ratings were not invented in the previous dark ages it is doubtful that they would have made such bleak reading. Australia are already assured of holding the Ashes for the sixth successive series for the third time but never before have they won every rubber in those sequences. And that was an England team which contained luminaries such as Ken Barrington and Ted Dexter, men who never once appeared in an Ashes-winning team.Such now is the fate which awaits the present England representatives who can avoid another unwanted piece of history only by winning the next two Test matches. For now, that place belongs to the period between February 1959 and February 1971 which was also six series. The longest period of 18 years 362 days spanned six series and also the Second World War but as Don Bradman was playing at the time they would probably not have been deprived of them then either.The present trot is so far only the third-longest stretch, though it will become the second depending on what happens and when in two years. Or not.Australia held the Ashes at the start of this century, having won them in July 1899, and by its end will have held them for a few days under 62 years.

Englishmen have spent the greater part of this century waiting for the Ashes, a prospect they have now been spared since that is not now possible until 2001. I don’t know what he’s been thinking of out there.”It is grim stuff, make no mistake, as it was probably always bound to be but let us not think that any of it is new. While remaining bewildered at Graeme Hick’s sad, staggering ability to do his rabbits-in-headlights impression – “you can’t believe it can you, a bloke with his talent” – he has been equally alarmed at the performance of the tail, as personified by Alan Mullally, who has only just stopped short of going to the crease sporting a fluffy tail and eating lettuce “He’s made fifties for us. Of course, they’ve got to be fit but I’m a bit of a believer in thinking that working on technique and developing it can be better than doing 1,000 push-ups.”But Birkenshaw’s real sadness was the seeming failure of too many individuals to take responsibility for the team, an aspect of which he has constantly reminded his charges at Leicestershire. I just wonder if we might have gone too far as well in one direction with our training. Maybe that comes from confidence and confidence comes from winning and well…

He bowled some dross but he turned the ball a long way and bowled some great wicket-taking deliveries We didn’t, there was no room for trying much different. When you’re up against an attack like the one they’ve got that can be pretty vital, otherwise you might be waiting an age to score a run.”They’ve bowled well but they’ve also been prepared to bowl the odd bad ball to get a wicket Look at Colin Miller. “I thought it was a shortcoming on our part that we’ve nobody in the side who’s a real cutter of the ball, playing with a horizontal bat. Like everybody else connected with the game he had ideas about what went wrong but was canny enough not to offer any quick-fire solutions.