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SYDNEY - A series of England cricket captains have taken up arms and travelled in hope to Australia only to find that war was not to their liking after all.
Like naive officer school graduates bound for the Western Front they packed their kitbags and marched off for
a spot of adventure, hoping it wouldn't all be over by Christmas.
Think of Nasser Hussain, boldly inserting the opposition at the 'Gabba four years ago. He lost the first four tests and it was all over by Christmas.
The same Nasser Hussain has been spotted in Brisbane and Adelaide in the past fortnight, averting his eyes in the lift, still wearing a look of bewildered resentment.
Think of Alec Stewart in 1998-99. A thunderstorm was all that kept Australia at bay in the 'Gabba test and Australia won the next two. All over by Christmas.
Then think of Mike Atherton four years before that. Full of hope and blasted 3-1.
And of Graham Gooch, his face drooping lower than his moustache, losing 3-0 in 1990-91.
This one was to be different. For the first time since Mike Gatting's side two decades ago England set out for the enemy's shore as the holders of the prize.
With them has come an armada of supporters from all corners of their island home.
Some of the strangest have been on display in the first two tests, parading through the grounds in their MCC blazers like outsized Billy Bunters at half-term.
One such Marylebone loyalist was spied resting behind the Bradman Stand on the last day of the Adelaide test match, unable apparently to watch any more of the carnage taking place on the other side of it.
He stood gasping in a fan-forced northerly, tugging occasionally at a moist and yellowing collar, yet steadfastly refusing to remove the offending jacket.
More endearing was a group of travellers from Halifax, Yorkshire, who breakfasted each day of the Adelaide test in a cafe on Gouger Street, at the opposite end of town from the hyphens in the Hyatt.
Each morning the Yorkies would arrive and cheerily tuck into vast plates of bacon, egg, sausage, tomato, mushroom and beans. Their budgets stretched to a 10-day round-trip with shared rooms in two-star lodgings; one star apiece.
It was for all of them the holiday of a lifetime and they were determined to make the most of it.
The all-you-could eat breakfast was $8.50; if the test had been more than five days the cafe proprietor might have been gone broke.
These men enjoyed themselves as hugely as they ate, especially while England were performing so robustly over the first four days of the match.
On the morning after the fifth day they were there in their usual seats. The cheeriness had gone. The eggs and bacon circulated like sawdust in their mouths as they contemplated their last day before boarding the plane for home.
"You wouldn't bloody believe it," one said between gulps of tea.
"All this ruddy way and they go and do that to us."
Beside him sat the morning newspaper, unopened. "I don't want to look at t'paper," he said.
"Couldn't bear to."
He was more philosophical after another mug of tea.
"I'm glad we came, really. We had four good days when we thought England might win it. That's more than the others will get now. I wouldn't want to be arriving for the next test."
Barring a remarkable and unforeseen turnaround in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, the series is dead.
Apart from our friends from Halifax and thousands of their ilk, the person we should feel most sorry for is Andrew Flintoff.
The urn that England brought so proudly along in its glass case has turned out to be a poisoned chalice. Wisden will now list Flintoff alongside his humiliated predecessors.
The lion of 2005 deserves so much more.
Circumstance has dealt him a number of cruel blows. The four-man pace attack that won the Ashes in England is a shadow of its former self.
The injury to Simon Jones was crucial. The pack has been broken up and his replacement Jimmy Anderson is out of his depth.
Flintoff himself is below match fitness. When England needed him on the fourth day in Adelaide he couldn't bowl because his ankle was too sore, not yet fully healed from having bone spurs removed last July.
And what of Steve Harmison? His head is in a worse state than Flintoff's ankle. He is one of Freddie's closest friends but he can't perform for his captain when his mind is so muddled.
The body language between the two of them as the Adelaide match unravelled was telling. Flintoff felt let down and even a nature as generous as his couldn't disguise it.
Former England academy coach Rod Marsh, who understands the England players from the inside, knew that Harmison was seriously underdone before the Brisbane test and that it was courting disaster to play him.
Throughout his career Harmison has shown that he needs work and more work to build up his rhythm and confidence. He missed the warm-up game in Adelaide and series figures of one for 288 say the rest.
And what of the choices of Ashley Giles ahead of Monty Panesar, and Geraint Jones ahead of Chris Read?
It is always risky trying to understand policy debate from outside the party room, but coach Duncan Fletcher made it a condition of his appointment seven years ago that he has absolute authority and that certainly appears to be the case.
Which brings us to the captain's position. Has England made a mistake by appointing Flintoff as captain?
He got the nod because he was so inspirational in the Ashes last year and for the vigour with which he rallied the troops when Michael Vaughan was injured in India. A revved-up England team won the last test to square the series.
Now, rather than being able to concentrate on his batting, bowling and slips fielding, Flintoff seems to have a head full of problems.
He has had to cope with the trauma of his senior batsman Marcus Trescothick flying home with depression before the first test.
He is trying to rest his ankle, but has been forced to carry much of the fast bowling attack (with the honourable exception of Matthew Hoggard, who said after Adelaide that what he most needed now was a good hug.
Flintoff is weighed down by mixed emotions over Harmison. He is worried whether the make-up of the team is right. And his own batting looks scratchy and distracted.
Andrew Strauss led a team containing Panesar, Read and Sajid Mahmood to a 3-0 victory in England's most recent series against Pakistan.
While he of course offered Flintoff his full support, he seems out of sorts. England's most experienced batsman was all but invisible in the Adelaide test.
The series is effectively over in 10 days.
Although events at Edgbaston, Old Trafford and Adelaide offer ample proof of the game's unpredictability, and hence its charm, it is inconceivable that this dispirited side can do what no other team in history have done: come back from 0-2 down away from home.
"It's a big challenge for us now," Flintoff said after the Adelaide match.
"We can't mope around too much, but this is going to hurt, this game. Personally, feeling like this and the way the lads are feeling, I don't want to feel like this again, so that's a big incentive for us."
It seems all England have left to play for is pride.
- AAP
