“I really thought this was England’s chance, Rob,” says Luke Regan. “More fool me; the Aussies are too good as usual. How we nearly beat them in England I’ll never know.
”We’ll also never know what would have happened if Pope hadn’t gifted his wicket so meekly. Never a good sign when everyone knows what you’re going to do before you do.
”Even if we now scrape a score approaching parity, we aren’t knocking them over cheaply without a frontline spinner to support Archer. This tour has truly become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
That’s an important point – parity is no good to England, they need a lead of at least 100. I should probably have written that in the past tense.
Lunchtime reading
