The Ashes are, I believe, gone. Australia will now beat us in this match and, just because they like doing it, beat us in the final one. That's what I believe. It's not throwing in the towel, it's just a sober assessment of the difference between the two teams. And this isn't even a vintage Aussie team. Far, far from it.
The English batsmen, especially, need to take a good long look in the mirror, and ask themselves some hard questions. Roy has been useless in this series, Denly's hardly better. But Root also needs to ask himself some questions. Only two or three years back I distinctly remember that he was being talked about in hushed tones in the media, as potentially one of the great openers (in the company of Kohli, Smith, etc.) Not even close. He is a man who sometimes gets useful 50s, which he can't convert into 100s. Burns has just about delivered.
We constantly rely on the get-out-of-jail of the middle order batsmen. They can't do it every time. Stokes performed heroics to virtually win Headingley single handed.
England have not once got to 400 in this series. In a proper five-day batting side, 400 should be considered as pretty good, no more. Most of the time, they haven't even made it to 300. So they're constantly putting themselves in difficulty, because they're facing a batsman who is in scorching form and who, alone, will put 100 (and beyond) metronomically on the board.
England came into this series as World Champions. They still are. In the one-day game, which they're good at. Well, that's nice.
