ASHES TO CRASHES

AT AROUND four o'clock, Sir Ian Botham managed a smile. I can guarantee it was his first one since waking up. And it could be the last of his summer.

Unless, of course, he had been reduced to the odd rueful effort as the misery unfolded.

Botham was being inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame - at a ground which has been England's hall of shame for the past two days.

A ground which hosted, of course, his heroics 28 years ago.

And just after tea at Headingley yesterday, if you were in the sad business of clutching at the most flimsy of straws, then I guess you could have said the stage was set for another hero.

Fat chance.

Geoff Boycott was also honoured alongside Botham. And what England needed was someone with the heart of Beefy and the doggedness of Boycs.

Fat chance.

What they needed was the aggression of the country's finest-ever all-rounder and the individual resilience of the country's most renowned, if not its most celebrated, opener.

Fat chance.

What England needed was another miracle.

Fat chance.

The country needed players with tickers the size of footballs. They got players with tickers the size of ping-pong balls.

For around 90 minutes, Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook hinted at resistance, suggested defiance.

It was a mirage. As fleeting as the odd glimpse of a decent delivery during Australia's cavalier innings.

After Strauss was trapped by Ben Hilfenhaus, Ravi Bopara strode to the crease. Suddenly, the England tail starts at No 3.

Bopara may have been a shade unlucky as a nick might have negated umpire Asad Rauf's leg-before decision but he clearly does not have enough mental toughness for this level.

Frozen

Ditto Ian Bell, frozen in headlights by, of all people, Mitchell Johnson.

Even Paul Collingwood - that gutsiest of characters - has found his spine weakened by six of the most lamentable sessions in England's history.

Sure, Australia's attack bowled with hugely impressive discipline. The polar opposite of the English rabble.

But the stomach for the fight seems to have gone.

With it, this Fourth Test . . . with it, the Ashes.

How can a team that has been so comprehensively outplayed recover from this, especially when shorn of their two players with genuine backbone and of genuine world-class stature?

They surely can't.

It was hard to know what was the more depressing. The all-too-predictable collapse after Cook and Strauss had put on a 50 partnership or another shatteringly shoddy fielding display.

Or maybe it was the sheer brainlessness. Send in Jimmy Anderson as nightwatchman then see him take a single and put Cook on strike so he could nick one of Johnson's outswingers.

But the tone was already set.

At times, England looked on the point of all-out bickering. The body language was X-rated, the bowling worse.

It was Fancy Dress Day at Headingley . . . and the prize went to the comedians masquerading as a Test team.

The Seven Dwarves I bumped into during the lunch interval almost snatched it - but they were all grumpy. Small wonder.

Hit the ground running. That was England's overnight mantra.

Hit the wicket halfway down and watch the scoreboard overheat. That was Steve Harmison and Co's mantra.

There were one or two nuggets of encouragement. Stuart Broad managed an impressive spell of keepy-up, demonstrating that those pre-game kickabouts don't just rick your back.

And Graeme Swann lightened the mood by falling over for no apparent reason. The dying Swann.

But the morning session - like every other - was no laughing matter. Just a failure of the grey matter.

Sure, two of the first three wickets came via the short ball . . . the problem was that 200 runs were clobbered in the process. If clobbered suggests disdain, it is meant to.

When Marcus North helped himself to another Ashes century by lifting one towards Lancashire, it summed up proceedings.

Rotten

Broad was the pick of a rotten bunch, his six-wicket effort including a couple in as many balls - Johnson hooking to Bopara and Peter Siddle stunned by the first beauty all match.

Yet it was another of his two-ball cameos that typified this lamentable England bowling performance.

Dropping yet another in his own half of the track, Broad saw tailender Stuart Clark despatch him into the stands.

And the Australian players almost fell off their balcony when the trick was repeated next ball.

Graham Onions trapped Michael Clarke to deprive him of a successive ton, Harmison got ill-deserved reward when Brad Haddin could not cope with a lifter and Broad put an end to the torture by removing Clark and North.

Well, at least the most temporary of ends.

Strauss and Cook looked untroubled until Hilfenhaus claimed the England skipper.

Then, shambles.

After Bopara's predictable exit, Bell fended Johnson to Ricky Ponting, Collingwood was trapped in front by the same bowler and the comedy villain of the Australian attack took his third when disposing of Cook (right).

The Headingley crowd who, according to some, had been coming here to jeer Ponting, simply mocked their own. Or went home early.

Who could blame them? England might have been untroubled by a five o'clock alarm call on Saturday morning but this most harrowing of nightmares continued.

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