There is the glory. The indescribable moment of hard earned triumph, the palpable sense of achievement when there are no worlds left to conquer. You stand alone at the top, surveying the vanquished below, as the adulation washes over you. Life seldom gets better.
Then there’s the polar opposite of this. The feeling of crushing defeat. Everything hurts. The sight of your opponent towering over you, the contemptuous sneer hidden somewhere in the victory smile and the consolatory handshake. The other side of solitude, this feeling of being utterly isolated as your world collapses around you.

On a stiflingly Sunday afternoon at the WACA and after some years of drinking in the former, England’s cricketers are suddenly very well versed in the latter. Unfolding before the gleeful eyes of a braying home support and a disbelieving away following, was the slow death of a once great cricket team. In temperatures of over 40 degrees, Alastair Cook’s team simply melted in the face of the onslaught from the Australians.

Once again their opportunities to take anything from the match, indeed from the series, had disappeared. Once again the sheer dominance of Michael Clarke’s side struck a painful blow. Having been bowled out for a below par first innings total, Australia’s opening batsmen, with the odious but seemingly omnipotent David Warner to the fore, tore into England who wilted in the heat like a sweaty, beered up fat man. The lead is over three hundred, though the total is irrelevant now as surviving sessions on this spitting cobra of a WACA pitch is all that is left for England. So, barring a miraculous rearguard action of the proportions witnessed in Auckland in March, England have lost the Ashes within three Test matches.

The fall from grace and disappearance of the smiles of late summer has been excruciatingly swift. Few could have predicted this cataclysmic change of fortunes and the shift in power between these two teams. But England must learn from this. Cricket Australia should be lauded for the way they have turned their fortunes around within a year. This current Australian team will never be mentioned among the greats but at present they are a formidable outfit. The pace and relentless hostility of the bowling line up is possibly the strongest in world cricket at the moment. In Clarke and Warner, Australia have world class batsmen and the rejuvenation of Brad Haddin has been a huge factor in their meteoric rise. Even Steve Smith and Nathan Lyon look like proper cricketers.

What now for England then? Much of this team have been wonderful cricketers and have given their all for their country in the recent successful years but now it is time to move on.
The current Andy Flower coaching set up has been the foundation of England’s success but it is time for them to go. Paul Collingwood should be reintroduced to the national set up as coach with an older wiser head (maybe not an Englishman) to guide him. Collingwood has the association with the glory years, the respect of his peers and the energy, the skills as well as the forward-thinking to be England’s new head coach. Will the ECB be brave enough to go for him?

One telling scene of yesterday afternoon’s play was the sight of England’s wicketkeeper Matt Prior crouched behind the stumps long after the ball had beaten him to the boundary for another four runs. He stayed in his position for thirty odd seconds, the weight of his problems seemingly preventing him from getting up. His deportment suggested his and his team’s recent troubles have got to this most energetic and positive of individuals. He looked a beaten man.
Prior has been the world’s best for the last two years but it is time to stand this most loyal of servants down. Similarly, James Anderson, Kevin Pieterson and Tim Bresnan should be allowed to slip quietly away from the Test arena. They all, like Prior, have given England fans such brilliant memories but the sport looks to have finally, fatally consumed them.

If England do escape with a draw here, which seems unlikely, it is simply a matter of papering over the cracks. The ECB must start to install wholesale changes if England are to ever get back to being the world’s number one cricket team and those halcyon days.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. A fresh start in a new job and the achievable goal of getting back on the road as soon as possible. Save, save, save. Get out to Australia again to watch Captain Cook and his brave lads as they do battle with their bitter rivals in yet another instalment of one of sport’s oldest rivalries.
At the end of August this plan was beginning to bear fruit. The flights were booked, some of the match tickets too, and for good measure England, in a gloriously hot, tenaciously contested series, had triumphed 3-0.

Confidence was high among my fellow supporters, who, buoyed by their team’s seemingly un-shiftable grip on the trophy booked flights in their thousands to board the bandwagon bound for Brisbane. Then the wheels came off.

Oh, how they came off.

Two right hammering a later, the minutiae I won’t go into here- you can read that pretty much everywhere else on the cricket pages of the Internet but it has a lot to do with the miraculous return form of Mad Mitch (pictured below)- and it looks like the worst idea since Stuart Sutcliffe decided etching over strumming would be a sounder career choice.

And, as if the miserable state of affairs England find themselves in wasn’t enough, there’s even pressure on me to deliver too. ‘Go out there and bring the boys some luck’ seems to be the overriding sentiment of the well wishers bidding me farewell for my latest voyage.

‘Bring England luck.’

Me?

Really?

What, like the sort of luck I’ve brought my football team, Luton Town in over twenty years of following them. Or, the sort of fantastic luck I’ve had with my career? Or my legendary luck with the opposite sex?

Have things got that bad?

Never one to shirk a challenge, with my whites safely stowed, my levels of contempt for Australian beer topped up and, especially after that last comment on the previous paragraph, tongue firmly in cheek, I embark for Australia carrying the hopes of a nation. Or at least the good people of a few villages in Mid-Bedfordshire.

And anyway, despite the score in the series looking as parlous as it does currently, there are a lot worse places to follow your favourite team to. I saw the ‘atters get beat 7-1 at Grimsby in freezing January once for goodness sake.

Sleeves rolled up, upper lip suitably stiffened I head to Australia for the last three Test Matches in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney with the odds stacked against my beloved team. Come on England. I still believe.

Altogether now, ‘Three-two, we’re gonna win three-two….’