Slip sliding away England's Ashes dogma is scrambling minds of the next cricketing generation

The cracks are starting to show with this England team and with the narrative we've been fed for three years after another defeat.

- Mark Ramprakash

Their identity of always taking the aggressive option, of relentlessly putting pressure on their opponents, isn't holding up to scrutiny. So far in this series they haven't had the strength needed to achieve it, and they haven't had the skills either.

I was confident that they could win the Ashes this time, mainly because I thought there was quality in the squad and that they had adapted their game to add intelligence and adaptability to their armoury. It's becoming clear that neither of those beliefs were completely true. And meanwhile I'm seeing things at home that make me worry that this team aren't just messing up this series, they're messing up a whole generation of young cricketers.

In their first innings at the Gabba Australia added 189 for the last four wickets, and how did they do it? They were ruthless, gutsy, determined and they had the big picture in mind. Beyond the brilliant Joe Root's wonderful, classy century England showed none of those qualities until the fourth day, when they were already facing near-certain defeat.

At this point Ben Stokes and Will Jacks displayed the adaptability I had hoped to see more of, as the two faced 220 balls in a battling partnership of 96. Stokes has proven many times that he is a very adaptable cricketer, capable of batting in different styles at different moments, and here we saw that quality again. But he's not seeing any of that adaptability in his players, who for three years have been bombarded with messaging about taking the aggressive option, pushing the game forward.