'Australia have made the second best team in the world look like no-hopers' © Getty Images

History repeats itself, Marx said – the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. And he was amply borne out this morning, as the lower half of England’s batting did their best to re-stage the nightmare they suffered in the first innings. The bigger picture was just as bad. The series began with England's bowlers conjuring up the first hour from hell, and here they were plumbing similar depths with the bat.

First the last batsman standing, Kevin Pietersen, lunged forward without thinking and nicked a ball from Glenn McGrath that was passing harmlessly outside his off stump. Pietersen is a huge talent, but he has shrunk before our eyes in the past couple of weeks. He has been able to stick around but his strike rate, usually so high, has plummeted. It’s almost as if two months in Australia have turned him into a fair-dinkum Englishman.

Then Monty Panesar and Chris Read blocked for 15 minutes. Finally they decided to set off for a run – or rather Read did, while Monty was slow out of the blocks. Andrew Symonds took out the middle stump with a ridiculously good throw. England were now, in effect, 12 for seven. You had to laugh.

When some runs did come, they were off the edge. Read soon flapped at a lifter, just like in the first innings. He’s an outstanding wicketkeeper and although he has played a few hapless strokes, it’s not his fault that he has been asked to bat at number seven in Australia, half-way through a series in which it had already become clear that an extra batsman was sorely needed.

Saj Mahmood, in surely his final appearance at number eight, was bowled off an inside edge. Steve Harmison mustered a little defiance, clouting McGrath back over his head. But it said an awful lot that England had reached the point where eight runs counted as defiance. The bottom five managed 29 runs in the innings, 33 in the match.

There is a terrible collective fragility about England now. They can have two decent days, and one bad one, and the bad one knocks the stuffing out of them, undoing all the good of the previous two. It’s as if each setback has taken them straight back to that awful morning in Adelaide. This game was the fourth in a row in which England have achieved some kind of parity, only to toss it – or have it wrenched – away. And if you think the Test team are in a bad way, bear in mind that over the past four years, the one-day team have been a whole lot worse.

But let’s not dwell on the losers of this grimly one-sided series. Australia have been awesome. The 5-0 scoreline that is half an hour or so away now is a great achievement, the crowning glory of a famous team, and another memorable chapter in the book of myths and legends that is Ashes history.

The Aussies have got into a few scrapes, as Ricky Ponting has said, but the way they have got themselves out of them has been phenomenal. Seven batsmen have made hundreds, and most of them have been either big ones or viciously fast ones. The fielding has crackled with predatory intent. The seam bowling, led from the back by Stuart Clark, has been a model of sustained professionalism. Two all-time greats have been given big emotional send-offs without the razzmatazz detracting at all from the job in hand. They have made the second best team in the world look like no-hopers.

England need to learn as much from the experience as the Australians did from 2005. Whether they will have the nous, the will, the nerve and the focus, remains to be seen.

	Warne: he and McGrath haven't lost a home Test together for 10 years © Getty Images

At the start of this series, there was much talk about Brisbane being Australia’s fortress. In mid-series, something similar was said about Perth. Both were right, but they didn’t tell the whole story. Australia’s fortress is … Australia.

Since the turn of the millennium, Australia’s record in home Tests looks like this: won 34, lost 2, drawn 7. So the 5-0 whitewash that only a miracle can now avert is merely a little better than par for the course. The only reason they haven’t done it more often is that most visiting teams play three Tests. Pakistan have lost their last six Tests in Australia; West Indies have lost their last eight. Only India and England have won one.

Australia’s average score at home, as a team, is 488; their opponents’ is 275. England’s average in this series is 274. Par for the course. Where England have flopped worse than other teams is with their bowling: Australia have romped to 520 per completed innings, helping themselves to an extra 32.

When the Aussies go abroad, they are still way ahead of the rest, but not by quite such a massive margin. The score moves to 26-8, and the team averages to 395 and 281, so other teams have a chance – though the Aussie bowlers are just as clinical. It’s like football: playing at home makes a bigger difference than it should. This season, in the English Premiership, only three teams out of 20 have picked up more than half the points in away games.

It doesn’t excuse England’s performance – they’re second in the world, and should have pushed Australia harder – but it does put it in context. And it means that visiting teams need to think much harder about how to steal victories on Australian turf.

Today, it was largely Shane Warne who turned parity into dominance. Like Justin Langer yesterday, he found the farewell cheers acting as a shot of caffeine and went off at a ridiculous lick. Warne’s personal home Test record is quite something: won 48, lost 7. Glenn McGrath’s is even better: won 52, lost 5. Together, they haven’t tasted defeat in a home Test since February 3 1997, when West Indies, who had just lost a series in Australia for the the first time in ages, picked up a consolation victory in Perth.

McGrath has lost one home Test since then – Melbourne, 1998-99, against England, when Warne was injured and Dean Headley had his day in the sun. Australia have lost two home Tests since, one to England and one to India, and each time, both Warne and McGrath were missing. Australia have been a great team, no question; but their twin peaks have been the two bowlers who bow out this week.

	Andrew Flintoff managed to find a hint of his old self at the start of the new year © Getty Images

Ian Bell compiled another of his fighting fifties, rather than one of the hundreds he reels off when he is in his rightful place at number six. Kevin Pietersen again mixed genius with rushes of blood. England made another baffling selection, opting to field all three of their seaming liabilities (Harmison, Anderson, Mahmood) rather than a second spinner (Dalrymple) who might have provided the missing cement at number seven. For the second Test running, they missed Jon Lewis, who could have been their best bowler on the Melbourne Christmas pudding, and the most natural understudy for Matthew Hoggard here.

They had as good a day as their long-singing fans could have asked for, yet they stand only a couple of nicks away from another insipid total. The difference is likely to depend, as so much has in this series, on Andrew Flintoff. “New year, new you,” the newspapers are all saying, but Flintoff prospered by finding his old self today, for the first time in nine months.

Lately he had regressed to his callow younger self, hanging out half a bat at stock deliveries. Today, even though he arrived in a mini-crisis, he was instantly decisive. He looked busy, ran freely and hit out selectively, using more of the face (and therefore saving a little of it). Off Stuart Clark and Brett Lee, he made 26 at a run a ball. Finally someone has worked out that just because Clark is a commercial lawyer is no reason to be silenced by him. This was the Flintoff of Edgbaston 2005, and the scorecard half-resembles that one. Ricky Ponting, sensing trouble, lurched on to the defensive.

It’s often a good sign when Flintoff is not out overnight. Last time it happened was in Perth, when he at least managed a semi-defiant fifty, and the time before was Mumbai in March, when he and Collingwood were at the crease as England finished the first day on 272 for three. Flintoff made 50 twice, sang Ring Of Fire, and led the way to his only overseas victory as captain. Today, he made sure that a mass leaving party was also an even contest.

It was a great idea for the adverts on the grass, usually so charmless, to say a big thank you to Warne, McGrath and Langer. But let’s also, in a smaller way, salute a man who managed to be carefree when the cares of the world were on his shoulders. Thx Fred.