It is never pretty when, just two Tests in, an Ashes tour reaches the Pom-pitying stage. But already the chasm in class between these sides is so yawning, Australians broach the subject to English visitors in the manner of bereavement counsellors.
“I won’t talk about the cricket,” Chris Smith, the Sydney radio presenter, assured me, after we had finished a breakfast discussion about the country’s cult of zero COVID. “It’s not looking too rosy for you blokes. Maybe Melbourne will be different – let’s hope so.”
