Now an optimistic outlook is required. The good news is that there is a precedent for England being overcome in the first Test in Brisbane and yet returning home with the Ashes (though, if pressed, one has to acknowledge that this happened on the 1954-55 tour when Frank Tyson was reckoned to be really quite scary by the Australians).
There is, however, no escaping that the mountain has become higher and steeper for Joe Root and his team over the past five days. Perhaps the most worrying observation is that England have performed quite well for most of the match at the Gabba. Yet they have still been outplayed.
The parallels with the defeat in Brisbane four years ago are far from precise. Then England had a more experienced lineup, which prompted greater expectations. But they were an old side, eyeing their future and it did not take much for the tour party to splinter when it started to go wrong (on the second day of the Gabba Test rather than the fourth). They left Brisbane in a state of shock, incurred by the ferocity of Mitchell Johnson roared on by 30,000 Queenslanders and they did not threaten to come back. There is a different feel to this side. They have more limitations but hopefully more resolve if not as much talent. They will surely stick together better.
Now they head to Adelaide and the pressure mounts. In times past the most genteel of Australia’s capitals was quite a good place to take stock. By Antipodean standards the wicket was a featherbed, where out-of-sorts batsmen could recover their form. It could easily be a venue for a holding draw while the generals reassessed their resources but not any more. Adelaide has become a result pitch in the brief era of day-night Test cricket. As dusk falls the capricious pink ball can become mischievous and untrustworthy. Bowlers now look forward to the Adelaide Test more than batsmen.
In one sense this is good news for England. If a draw is taken out of the equation the chances of squaring the series at the earliest opportunity are enhanced. Traditionally England sides – and this theory applies to the 2017 tour party – are better suited to playing on surfaces that offer sideways movement. On true surfaces extra pace and quality mystery spin can be invaluable; this is not England’s forte. But the old guard of Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson can be rejuvenated by the prospect of seam movement, which has been evident whenever using the pink ball in Adelaide.
So the next Test, if there was ever doubt, is crucial. It probably represents England’s best chance of a win in this series, but the realisation that a draw is very unlikely adds to the pressure. England will play the same batsmen. All of them, except Alastair Cook, showed glimmers of good form at the Gabba, where the ball spun more than anticipated for Nathan Lyon. Now they must consider how they plan to play Lyon in Adelaide; they may have to risk being more proactive against him.
The problem is not helped by the proliferation of left-handers in the England team. Like most off-spinners Lyon is more effective against them; this mirrors the difficulties experienced against Mehedi Hassan in Bangladesh and Ravi Ashwin in India last winter. England could do with more right-handers – even the man in reserve, Gary Ballance, is left-handed – but the selectors must have taken that into account when they chose their party.
For Mark Stoneman, who was impressively composed against the new ball in both innings at the Gabba, and Dawid Malan working out how to get off strike against Lyon is a major challenge. Counter-intuitively it is sometimes necessary for batsmen to be more aggressive in Test cricket than at domestic level for the simple reason they receive far fewer poor deliveries. Stoneman and Malan are discovering this, the hard way, against Lyon.
Mitchell Starc neatly outlined Lyon’s value to the side at the Gabba. “He has been fantastic in this Test match,” he said. “By keeping one end tied up, it enabled the quick bowlers to have short, sharp spells at the other end.”
So the theory is simple: disrupt Lyon and those fast bowlers’ spells will not be so short or so sharp. The problem is that Lyon is a much-improved bowler; he now bowls faster and more accurately. But even the best lose some control when they are successfully attacked.
If there is the anticipated movement in Adelaide, then England’s lack of pace when compared with the Australian attack will be less critical. Twenty wickets will not be beyond them but finding a way to dispatch Steve Smith cheaply will keep the analysts as well as the bowling coach – for one more game Shane Bond – busy. For all the cunning plans of sitting back and restricting Smith in Brisbane it was his innings that swung the Test.
The one change they might consider is giving a debut to Craig Overton in place of Jake Ball, who had a tricky game at the Gabba. He was more ring-rusty than the other seamers and, when he batted the opposition pacemen propelled every ball he faced at his head, which he found difficult. There was a time when umpires would not allow that to happen against tail-enders. But here umpires Das and Erasmus did not seem too bothered.
