Not all failings of England’s Test team can be blamed on county cricket

England in Australia: anatomy of a shellacking. The reviews are in. The play-by-play reports have been filed by those closest to this sullen and lifeless Ashes tour. Two things stand out.

Firstly, the startling mediocrity of so much of the basic management. There is no question, if only in the spirt of making the deckchairs look nice while the prow of the ship slides into the north Atlantic, that heads must roll, even if just in the name of keeping up appearances.

The second thing is the level of blame and misdirection around England’s defeat, a quality that seems in itself deeply instructive. To date, the roster of excuses offered up by players, management and connected parties has included: the umpires, the rain, the heat, the ball, the pitches, inexperience, bad luck, Darren Stevens, injury, tiredness, boozing, skin folds, not enough family time, too much family time, the need to play golf, playing too much golf, the bowling being too fast, the bowling being too accurate, the bowling being too bouncy, each other and, best of all, a Culture Of Excuses.

Plus of course Darren Stevens, and Darren Stevens again. It is a quirk of English cricket’s angst-ridden conversation with itself that Stevens’ name was mentioned so often over the first three Tests that he issued a statement asking people to stop bringing him into it.

With good reason too. Here’s a funny thing: Australian Test players in county cricket have a WhatsApp group where they talk about the difficulties of playing here. It’s called “Stevosgoingtogetyou”. And he is. Last summer Stevens bowled to Marnus Labuschagne twice and once to Travis Head. He got them out all three times, for 11, 11, and 20.

In reality Stevens is one of the good bits of county cricket –