All over in 11 days England's careless machine collapses like a castle of dust

Ashes are gone again and the reckoning is coming for a regime that lost not just quickly, but sloppily, refusing to adhere to cricket's basics

- Barney Ronay

When the moment finally came the visuals were perfect: clean lines, neat angles, figures picked out in crisp afternoon sun against the almost satirical splendour of Adelaide Oval.

Scott Boland took the final wicket to seal Australia's unassailable 3-0 Ashes series lead, the 74th time this moment has been played out down the centuries, and immediately the white shapes converged to form a bobbing huddle. England's batters stood in an attitude of formal deflation. The umpires began their priestly last-things walk, framed against that huge, empty, lime-green field.

Before long the players dispersed into handshakes and stump-distribution, a final divvying-up before this private space is transformed into a public stage, invaded already by a cavalry of TV plinths, dignitaries, microphone wanglers, transports and trucks.

And finally, drawing up the rear, a lone man in shorts with a broom. Because this is cricket and there is always a man with a broom waiting for everyone to go away. Here he comes again, the reaper with his scythe, a reminder, perhaps, that there is a man with a broom who waits for us all. As there is now surely for senior parts of the current England regime. It has taken 11 days of active Test cricket for this powerfully resourced England and Wales Cricket Board machine to collapse like a castle of dust, vibes and blue-sky wiffle, and to do so before the southern summer has reached its midpoint. So this is Christmas. And what have we done? The Ashes is over. With two Tests still to come fight on the final day as England compiled the fourth highest fourth innings score at this ground.

But only the kind of fight that points to an absence of fight when fight really mattered. Talent expressed too late. And a rearguard whose only function was to ensure the final moment was delivered in front of a day-five crowd, empty green seats under the distant stands, men with brooms at the fringes.