Pondering poor decisions on my flight to the already lost Ashes

“What are you doing here, mate?” an ex-colleague inquired incredulously, as though we were meeting in a Siberian prison camp rather than an Australian press box.

- George Simms

“Didn’t someone tell you the Ashes are over?”It had been mentioned. Twenty-four hours contorted into airplane seats had afforded me ample time to ponder the poor decisions of the England men’s cricket team and my former self. If there’s one thing cricket will always provide, it’s a mirror for personal failings.

Pre-series, former bowler Stuart Broad called this Australia team “the worst since 2010”. He was right. England managed their second-quickest defeat all the same.

This collapse has been especially painful because, for reasons that remain unclear, a heady delusion had infected the nation visa-vis the capabilities of our brave and brilliant boys.