Comment: This team at risk of leaving England as the worst Australian tour party ever

COMMENT: ENGLAND'S mocking media are in danger of being right. This could well be the worst Australian side ever to embark on an Ashes tour.

ENGLAND'S mocking media are in danger of being right. This could well be the worst Australian side ever to embark on an Ashes tour.

Australia has never lost more than three Tests during a series in England.

On the back of a depressing 347-run, four-day defeat in the second Test at Lord's, this side may well lose all five. It is already 2-0 down.

Heaven knows what the tally could be by the time the last Test of the return series is over in Sydney five and a half months from now.

There are eight Ashes Tests to go. On the evidence of Lord's this could be half a dozen too many.

After a 4-0 defeat in India, Australia has now lost six Tests in a row for the first time since 1984. The worst losing streak is seven almost 130 years ago.

The excitement generated by Darren Lehmann's appointment as coach and the buoyant mood after a close loss at Trent Bridge has proved a false dawn.

There is a sense of foreboding about what lies ahead, with yesterday's enormous loss the second worst runs defeat by Australia in Ashes history and the worst in England.

The only bigger runs loss was 675 at the Exhibition Ground in Brisbane late in 1928, before the Gabba began hosting Test cricket. A young Don Bradman made his debut, making 18 and 1, and was dropped for the next Test.

Australia has only ever been whitewashed once in England, and that was during a three-Test series back in 1886.

The other large series defeats in England were 3-0 in 1977, 3-1 in 1981 and 3-1 in 1985 on tours unsettled by World Series Cricket and South African rebel tours.

During all three of those series Australia did not start as badly as the current team.

In 1977 the first Test was drawn before Australia lost the next three, in 1981 Australia won the first Test and drew the second before losing the next three, and in 1985 it was one all after four Tests before Australia lost the last two by an innings.

The fear that Australia fired its best shot at Trent Bridge appears to have been reinforced. Inept batting was camouflaged by combined last wicket partnerships of 228.

The 180 that Joe Root, 22, scored during the past couple of days is significantly more than any Australian batsman has made in the series.

More embarrassing is the fact that Ashton Agar is Australia's leading run-scorer in the series with 130 and only two other players, Shane Watson (109) and Michael Clarke (102) have crept into triple figures across four innings.

The Australians are no doubt already aware that Old Trafford and The Oval, venues for the third and fifth Tests, have a reputation as the pitches most likely to assist spin.

It is difficult to believe that any pitch in England could favour the spinners as much as Lord's has these past few days given that some of Graeme Swann's deliveries turned away from the left handers so sharply they finished up at slip.

Dry and dusty wickets should not be a surprise. Australia was completely flummoxed by India's spinners earlier this year, losing 4-0.

Australia must find a way of scoring runs or be consigned to the dust bowl of history.