Mentally Scarred, If Only Mo Had Illy's Self-Belief

At last. It’s all over. No more getting up in the middle of the night, hoping you didn’t wake anyone up with a loud volley of expletives after turning on the radio, and trying to fight off the urge to kick the cat whilst harrumphing your way back up the stairs to bed.

- Martin Johnson

At least England were kind enough to expire quickly on the last day of the series, although tuning in to find that the hoped-for-rearguard action had been replaced by some turgid World Service programme on social media etiquette was even more of a punishment than usual.

It’s also a relief to switch off Graeme Swann and Geoffrey Boycott for the rest of the winter. It takes a lot to find someone more inordinately pleased with himself than Boycott, but Swann appears to have managed it, although he did stop short of advising people like Moeen Ali to follow his own example when losing confidence in the middle of an Ashes series in Australia. Namely, head straight for the airport.

Moeen won’t be the only England player whose self-belief took a knock this winter, but he’s the one who stands out most, and it will take a bit of clawing back. Test cricket can do this to a player, unlike, say, rugger, where you haven’t much time to dwell on things, or football, where the only thing gnawing away at you is whether to clutch your head or your leg when you hurl yourself to the ground in the penalty area.

England were in the field for 193 overs in Sydney, which is a long time to be thinking about what on earth you’re doing out there in the first place, and a long time to avoid looking at the skipper in case he remembers you’re playing and asks you to bowl. When all you want to do is be alone with your thoughts at fine leg, and wonder whether there are easier ways of making a living.