England's Ashes dreams melt away like spring snow

In common with the Barmy Army and thousands of less vocal England supporters, I love watching the national team play well. Day one at Adelaide, like day two at Brisbane, was a joy. But when Michael Vaughan fell in that last over to the cunningly introduced Andy Bichel, I doubt if I was the only one to utter an expletive. Beautifully though Vaughan had batted, phlegmatically though he had ridden his luck, my overriding sense was one of trepidation as to what might happen the following day.

When Australia are the opponents, England supporters derive double satisfaction from a day on top. They need to, because the suspicion, not to say the knowledge, is that there will not be another one for a while. This is not to belittle England's efforts. Apart from Vaughan, Steve Harmison, Craig White and Richard Dawson in particular showed big hearts as Australia chiselled out another chilling total. But nothing alters the perception that this is an average team attempting to grapple with a titanic one.

Five of Australia's players - Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath - would walk into a world XI. Although on current form Vaughan would at least be in with a shout, no other England player is. Indeed if you picked a best of the rest team to meet Australia, they would still be tough nuts to crack.

As with the West Indies 15 to 20 years ago, Australia's strength in depth is the envy of every other cricketing nation. Like his two predecessors, Steve Waugh is a great captain, but like Viv Richards, he also had the good fortune to inherit a world-beating team. The fact that they have missed around 20 chances in their last five Tests (all of which they have won) simply emphasises their supremacy.

Can any comfort be drawn from England's predicament? After this series it is nearly three years until the Ashes blaze again, by which time several of the giants in the present Australian team may have been replaced. Waugh certainly, while McGrath and Warne will both be nearer 40 than 30. Like Allan Border's team in the 1985 series, England have players young enough to learn from their present plight, and hopefully proud enough to thirst for revenge. They need to learn every available lesson, pick up every single trick, from their rampant opponents.

Waugh himself said recently that the wheel will turn, and that he does not want to be playing when it happens. He need not worry. But here is a sobering question - where else in the world would a 28-year-old batsman score two double centuries against the same touring team, yet fail to command a Test place?

England are taking a hiding, the like of which has left other decent sides sore in the recent past. Ask Shaun Pollock. Ask Waqar Younis. Admittedly Pakistan were below strength for their three-nil annihilation, but the manner of it still looked portentous at the time. Nasser Hussain's words at the start of the tour - that there would be nowhere to hide, that England needed everything to go right off the field as well as on it - are haunting now.

England's plague of injuries is the stuff of nightmares, and can hardly have enhanced morale. With hindsight Andy Flintoff's double hernia operation should have been carried out sooner, and the gamble on Darren Gough proved misguided. For the rest the tourists have had bad luck by the bucketful. But catches are not necessarily about luck, and as in England last year, too many have been missed.

The year before, England and their supporters derived special pleasure from beating the West Indies at last, winning back the Wisden Trophy that had eluded them for 31 years. It was a triumph that 15 years earlier had seemed almost unimaginable. It even fostered hope that they could give the old enemy a run for their money again. A forlorn hope, repeatedly crushed by a mighty juggernaut.

One day, for sure, England will regain the Ashes. Not this time it seems, not this decade perhaps. But it will happen. I just hope I'm around to see it.