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The Ashes, one of Cricket’s most hallowed tournaments held every two years between archrivals Australia and England since 1882, proved to be yet another theater of the ongoing embarrassment of English Cricket and its obdurate affection for a strange and ineffective philosophy, many notable individual heroics aside. I sincerely take no joy at all in this: everyone enjoys a nice and tense set of games between evenly matched opponents in any sport.

No pundit so of course here’s a trenchant analysis. Evident home advantage aside, Australia just played meat-n-potatoes Test Cricket: Bowlers suffocated with near-perfect line and length. Batsmen didn’t indulge in outlandish heroics (“Vibe Cricket”). And critically, every person responsible for catching a ball (you know, to get the other team out) made sure to wash their hands of any butter from breakfast. And there was, at the minimum, a ‘concept of a plan’. That’s all. Small things, great attention, done to perfection.

England managed to talk a big talk and do little else. All the dropped catches aside, I will not forget how their spearhead fast bowler, a very talented fella, got mouthy with and punished by the greatest Test batsman in a generation, all while dressed like a recently promoted minor henchman in a Guy Ritchie movie: “Bowl fast when there’s nothing going on Champion.” I cannot think of a more symbolic summary of both the series and the state of English Cricket than the minute and thirty seconds of that video.

Since 2013 England has won 10 (and drew 6) of 38 Test matches against Australia.