I have heard some interesting insults before, but the Australian newspapers might just be setting a new benchmark. Fleet Street’s finest in the UK often dump a barrage of criticism on the national football team and in particular Fabio Capello. The Daily Mail once wrote: “England coach Fabio Capello and his team of self-regarding flops have presided over a national embarrassment, one of the most comprehensive humiliations in our sporting history.” This was written the day after England were sent crashing out of the World Cup by Germany.

Australia suffered their biggest defeat in 24 years to England, which has left captain Ricky Ponting with the greatest challenge of his career: inspiring an overwhelmingly impotent group.

“Oh the horror,” Melbourne tabloid, the Herald Sun, gasped in a headline. Pictures of Ponting’s brooding expression were splashed all over the pages.

“Beaten. Broken. Bereft of options. Australian cricket has not been in such a parlous state for two decades,” the paper’s Will Swanton wrote.

There can be nothing more crippling for the Aussies than losing by such a margin to England. A hefty hammering from the English is relative to a kick to the gonads for the average individual and Australia’s intrepid skipper is being reduced to the sports hero Tom Wolfe once spoke of: growing older, balder and sadder. In fact according to writer Richard Hinds, “the idea of Ricky Ponting and his demoralised battlers halting the English juggernaut is like putting a toothpick on the tracks in the hope of derailing a speeding bullet train.” That really puts their situation in perspective.

So what is the remedy for a team whose current state is so dire that Bangladesh might even fancy their chances? How do you revive a team whose core seems to be made of “some sort of gooey, soft-centred material that melts rapidly when heat is applied, is easily removed from flat surfaces, does not bounce or spin and which stinks to high heaven?”

The Ghostbusters cannot help the Australian cause, but the media certainly thinks that freshly frosted Shane is the person “you Warne-a call”.

Peter Fitzsimons of the Sydney Morning Herald had this to say about the urgent SOS: “Yes, yes, I know he’s 41. I know he’s caused more ugly tabloid headlines than Paris Hilton. I know he hasn’t bowled a ball in anger since April. What is important is to save the Ashes and beat England.” Simple.

In my view the Australians have been chopping and changing their team for too long. In the 1990s and early 2000s the likes of the Waugh brothers, Warne, McGrath, Langer, Hayden, Gilchrist, Ponting and Lee were capable of coaching themselves. They were a prodigious group and manifested Australia’s winning mentality, the likes of which had rarely been seen. Now Ponting looks to be as clueless as the rest of the team, strapped for penetration in his bowling attack, with no runs behind his own name and with no inspiration as the shepherd of a group that is as distinctly average as any Australian team I have, and probably will ever, know.

Another Shane Warne swansong seems ridiculously unlikely. The thickset Melbourne rebel is now into his 40s and hasn’t bowled a competitive delivery since April. He has made a personal call for Michael Beer, an untried state cricketer, for his left-arm spin and local knowledge of Perth’s WACA ground.

While fresh blood might inject some exuberance into a decidedly crestfallen squad, it would do little to bamboozle England’s batsmen who are as assured with the bat, as I am at buttering my English muffin.

I can’t see England winning the series with anything less than a 3-0 score line from here. Ponting is in a quandary because he can continue to do his utmost to lift his lifeless team from its knees, or retire as captain with the side in tatters. Either way the press will remain the hectoring narrator and Ponting Tasmania’s fallen hero.

[Source :Reuters, SuperSport]

Main image via bleacherreport.com