England have given up the ghost. They have done everything but wave the white flag and their three-day defeat in the fourth Test in Melbourne seems to give them little hope of avoiding a 5-0 series whitewash.

On the first day, England batted like a team that didn’t care and scored a measly 159 runs in 74 overs. Was this the same team which in the last Ashes series made more than 400 in one day?

With Australia at 84 for five, England were back in the game, but a bad umpiring decision saw them lose their way as Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds combined for a 279-run partnership which took the game well beyond the tourists' reach. The only positive for England following their capitulation is that they have an extra two days to rest before the Sydney Test.

It is a sorry state of affairs that even after four matches, England have not been able to get their team selection right. Everyone who is anyone has been saying that Kevin Pietersen should be batting higher up. Definitely at four, possibly even three because with the frequent middle-order collapses he has been left stranded with the tail too many times. 

With regard to Australia, they did enough to win. They weren't at the top of their game but they benefited from England's poor batting and some sloppy bowling.

English touring sides to Australia in the 1990s and early part of this decade were pretty hopeless, too, but at least they made things interesting by winning a match along the way - albeit after the series had already been decided. This side looks highly incapable of drawing any match, let alone winning.