Nothing new under the Australian sun

Pat Cummins is rolling around with his son Albie in the middle of the Adelaide Oval, just under an hour after Australia wrapped up an 82-run victory to take an unassailable 3-0 series lead. Nearby, players' kids are involved in an impromptu cricket game. The Australian captain, in his socks, would later claim to have lost to this team, led by Alex Carey's son Louis, which is also where he lost his shoes.

It was a loss he didn't mind on a day he'd claimed the biggest prize for an Australian captain: leading his team to Ashes glory for the second time in his career. They did it in straight sets with two Tests still to go, against what was billed as the most anticipated Ashes tour from an English team in decades—hyped as perhaps England's best chance this century not just to beat Australia, but to teach them a lesson.

All it took Australia was 11 days of cricket, most of which they dominated, dictated, and set the tempo for. All they needed to do was play like Australian teams do on home soil: cerebral, unrelenting, unwavering, ruthless.

England didn't give them much to think about or challenge them to move from their original plans. Instead, they allowed Australia to play the last two Tests on their own terms, save for a few examples of fight and grit, like on the final morning in Adelaide.

For a brief while, as Jamie Smith and Will Jacks were at the crease, there seemed the unlikeliest chance for a miracle. In hindsight, it was never going to happen. Not often does a team start the last three days of a Test banking on a miracle and come close to winning. But there was belief among the Barmy Army as Smith smashed four boundaries off Cummins and Mitchell Starc across two overs, before holing out to the captain at mid-on attempting a wild hoick.

In a way, Smith's dismissal illustrated this English team: players with great potential, but mostly lacking the temperament or tenacity to maximize it, unable to rein in the craving for a dopamine hit with the bat.

It was an innings of high class till that point, much like Zak Crawley's the previous day or Jacks' that briefly threatened the Aussies. Eventually, it wasn't to be—much like England's claims over the last three-and-a-half years that they had the arsenal to dethrone Australia at home.

This wasn't Bazball. This was the kind of ball play we've seen plenty from English teams in the past.

In a strange way, this wasn't the movie we were promised. It was supposed to be an action-thriller with dramatic run-chases, audacious strokeplay, and outrageous batting exploits. Instead, we got a movie we'd seen before, with an obvious ending.

This was supposed to be a heavyweight bout, a clash of cultures: tradition versus a brave new world, a direct strike at Australia's approach of grinding teams down. But none of it was on display. This English team, which promised to shelve stereotypical cynicism and run towards danger, instead went further into its shell, losing the Ashes in record time and faring worse than four years earlier.

This was the kind of ball play we've seen from English teams when overwhelmed by conditions, overawed by the challenge of winning a Test in Australia, and overcome by the feeling of being unable to stop the Australians.

Even on a day when Nathan Lyon went down with a scary hamstring issue with England still sort of in the run-chase, England's Ashes hopes went limp. Lyon would later chuck away his crutches, stand on one leg leaning against teammates, and join the team song—an image that summed up the story.