BBC SPORT | Cricket | The Ashes | Sympathy stops for England



By Jonathan Agnew BBC cricket correspondent, Brisbane

England were never going to save this match, but their supporters deserved much better than this.

Bundled out in less than 29 overs, Nasser Hussain's team was overwhelmed to an humiliating degree.

It makes one wonder if his players can possibly recover from this.

The only player who could justifiably claim to being nervous was Simon Jones

To be fair, England were derailed early by a poor umpiring decision against Michael Vaughan.

In the first over, he was given out lbw to a ball that was straight, but would have comfortably passed over the stumps.

England had one run for the loss of their first wicket, and this gave Australia just the start they needed.

There, however, the sympathy stops and what followed was a collapse that can only be described as shambolic.

Somewhere in the midst of the mayhem, Crawley was run out in one of the most bizarre mix-ups it has ever been my privilege to see.

John Crawley is run out
Crawley had nowhere to run
Had it been in a different situation, it might well have alerted Lord Condon's anti-corruption unit!

Crawley allowed a Warne delivery to spin past his legs and assumed that Gilchrist had collected it.

In fact, the wicketkeeper had missed the ball and, next moment, Butcher was dashing three quarters of the way down the pitch, urging Crawley to run!

A brilliant throw from Langer to Gilchrist, who then hit the stumps at the bowler's end with a direct throw completed the run out, and Crawley was on his way.

Next ball, so was Stewart who completed the first pair of his 123-Test career.

Intimidated

Afterwards, Hussain made two admissions. The first, we all expected: he had got it wrong by asking Australia to bat when he won the toss.

The second admission, that his players were tense and nervous, worries me.

Michael Vaughan dismissed by Lehmann
Vaughan was worryingly cowed
Hussain was quite right: his team was obviously intimidated because of the dreadful fielding and erratic bowling on that opening day that cost England the game.

But these are not young, inexperienced newcomers. The only player who could justifiably claim to being nervous was Simon Jones, whose tour ended with that cruel knee injury.

Yet Caddick, Hoggard and Vaughan - to name just three - were clearly cowed and that is a major concern.

Ahead of them is a meeting with Australia A in Hobart next weekend - a match which will give them some more experience of ruthless, unforgiving cricket Australian-style

All that England can do is to identify their team for the second Test, play it in the tour match, and show a great deal more maturity when the teams meet again in 10 days' time.