“They’ve outplayed us with the bat, they’ve outplayed us with the ball, they’ve outplayed us in the field,” said Brendon McCullum, offering a faultless diagnosis of England’s flame-out in Australia but giving precious few reasons as to why. It sounded suspiciously like a 21st-century update of “can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field”, the timeless evisceration that The Telegraph’s Martin Johnson delivered in 1986, in response to England’s two woeful defeats to state opposition Down Under. One crucial difference, though. While Mike Gatting’s side would go on to laugh in the face of such barbs, winning the subsequent Ashes series 2-1, Ben Stokes’ players have just thrown the urn away in a record-equalling 11 days’ cricket.

At least the team of 39 years ago – “has-beens”, according to Stokes – deigned to play proper warm-ups in Australian conditions. The class of 2025, by contrast, imagined that a cluster of one-dayers in the chill of New Zealand, followed by an intra-squad game on a featherbed at Lilac Hill, would be sufficient groundwork for facing Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins at full tilt on an Ashes tour. It was an attitude of monumental arrogance. And this is what all the supporters who have ploughed life savings into following them here, or who have stayed up until all hours in the English winter darkness hoping for these batsmen’s brains to engage, find so hard to forgive.

How can you characterise this as the “biggest series of all our lives”, as McCullum memorably did earlier this year, and then neglect to lay the foundations? Where was the pre-tour exposure to Ashes conditions, the emphasis on adapting to the extra bounce? Where was the meticulous attention to detail, the setting of standards? It is the fundamental folly of Bazball, a castle built on sand. It is all very well styling yourselves as cricket’s answer to punk rockers, revelling in raw self-expression and anti-establishment energy. But it all means nothing when the idea stands so glaringly at odds with the execution.

Even if McCullum was as honest as he had ever been in suggesting England’s build-up was inadequate, some of the rhetoric has been delusional. Take the risible remark during this Adelaide Test by Jeetan Patel, England’s spin-bowling coach, who said: “That narrative of it being the series is everyone else’s story.” No, Jeetan, it was the exact same narrative advanced by the head coach three months earlier. It was the same message that had been emphasised consistently by Rob Key, the managing director. Why attempt this psychological manipulation of people who disagree with you so that they question their own memory? Surely that is the very definition of gaslighting.

It is the worst trait of this confounding team, some of whom like to leave you doubting what you can see with your own eyes. Take Zak Crawley’s framing of the backlash against Ollie Pope. Asked whether Pope was under pressure, he replied: “Well, maybe from you guys. Not from inside the camp. I think he has had a really good year, he has scored hundreds when we needed him to. So, yeah, that’s the talk from outside.” Hundreds when needed? When could the need be greater than when the Ashes are on the line? Instead, Pope has responded with scores of 46, 33, 0, 26, 3 and 17, an average of 20. But of course, his under-performance is portrayed as a media concoction.

McCullum looked weary as he stood on the sun-drenched Adelaide outfield, while Pat Cummins and the Australian players began the celebrations behind them. He accepted that there would be a harsh inquisition, that England had been found wanting in every facet of the game. You looked in vain for a more emotional reaction, in keeping with the breathless billing he had given this tour. Perhaps McCullum prefers to internalise his emotions. Or perhaps, hailing from New Zealand, he struggles to grasp the brutal intensity and scrutiny that accompanies an Ashes tour.

It has seemed here as if England’s abysmal batting has provoked greater anger among former Australian players than the tourists’ coaching staff. Where McCullum provided only a fatalistic shrug, Ricky Ponting once more looked genuinely infuriated by the rashness on display, turning on Jamie Smith for snuffing out the faint hope of a record run chase with absurd shot selection. As Smith fell for 60, looking to launch Starc over the on side but top-edging to a grateful Cummins, Ponting raged: “Dopey, dopey, dopey. There’s another one of those moments – they didn’t need to do that. The batting was looking easy for him. A new ball on this wicket, the best time in the game to bat, and you just go and throw it away.”

But then England have shown scant interest in learning or adapting. The notion of playing like free spirits is so deeply ingrained that the only question is which player on which day will surrender his wicket most carelessly. Just as Harry Brook set the team on the path to perdition with his botched reverse sweep, Smith finished it all off with another rush of blood to the head. As the Australians jumped for joy, you could hardly forget the gulf between England’s perception of themselves and the bitter truth. “We will live forever,” said Stokes in 2023, “in the memory of those who were lucky enough to witness us play cricket.”

A lofty statement, to be sure. And one that now stands as a galling illustration of England’s hubris. Stokes, never one to admit making a mistake, insisted there had been an “evolution” in their style while in Australia, where they were increasingly learning to adjust to match situations. But it has all come too late to matter in the final reckoning. The lack of precision arose, ultimately, from a lack of preparation. At this level of international sport, an oversight so basic is impossible to excuse.