England capped off a horrid 2021 by losing the Ashes to Australia in just 12 days of cricket yesterday at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Their capitulation by an innings, with the batting line up being dismissed for just 68 in the second innings saw the tourists fall 3-0 down in the Ashes.
They showed some rare promising signs on Day 2 with the ball, but England, in their six innings, have scored more than 250 on just one occasion. Australia, on the other hand, have done it three out of five times, with one of their other innings stopped at 1 for 20 in a run chase at the Gabba, and their second innings in Adelaide ending at 9 declared for 230.
The numbers alone are embarrassing for England, who have struggled with the bat all year.
It may have come home to roost down under, but this is a team who have lost just about every series they have played in the long form of the game during 2021.
They beat Sri Lanka in a two Test series back in January, but since then, have lost to India away from home back in February and March, New Zealand at home, India again (this time at home) and now the Australians.
In fact, they have played 15 Tests, winning just four while they have lost another nine, with two of those by an innings. A record of four and nine to go with two draws is simply unacceptable.
Their batting has been the main blame whether at home or on the road, and the damning statistic that extra is England's third highest run scorer for the calendar year should tell you all you need to know.
While captain Joe Root finishes the calendar year with the fourth most prolific in the history of the game at 1708 runs, only Rory Burns managed to scrape past 500 runs out of the rest of their batters, with extra then sitting third on 412.
England batting of 2021 in a single picture with Extras contributing 412 runs to the team. pic.twitter.com/hqmS4Ov1HT
— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) December 28, 2021
Dawid Malan, who has shown promise in Australia, managed to score 308 runs in his five Tests, but outside of that, it's a sorry state of affairs with Chris Woakes holding the third highest average across his 173 runs.
Rory Burns averages just 28.83 for the calendar year, and it drops further from there, with only Dan Lawrence and Jos Buttler averaging north of 25, and Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes and Ollie Pope over 20.
Zak Crawley, who was brought in for Boxing Day, has scored just 173 runs in eight Tests for the year at an average of 10.81, while Haseeb Hameed's six Tests have brought just 205 runs at 18.63.
