English press already hand-wringing over a brimful of Ashes

The blood-letting has very nearly begun. With England’s hold on the Ashes urn, seemingly, certain to come to an end in Perth, so have the country’s cricket identities and journalists begun to turn on the team.

Australia lead the five-match series 2-0 and held a 146-run lead, with six first-innings wickets in hand, after three days of the third test at the Waca.

England took just one wicket - that of Shaun Marsh – for 346 runs on day three, as Australia went to stumps at 549-4. Former England captain Michael Vaughan left people in no doubt about his thoughts.

‘‘It is a disastrous day,’’ Vaughan told BT Sport. ‘‘I think today showed we have no swing, no seam, no pace or no spin. How are you going to get wickets? You are basically relying on an Australian batting lineup getting bored, chipping one in the air, but you can see in their eyes that they are not going to do that.

‘‘They are desperate to get the Ashes back and you have to say today is the day, in my opinion, that the Ashes will be staying in Australia.’’

Jonathan Liew, of The Independent, didn’t mince his words either.

‘‘On a desolate, dispiriting, irredeemable day for English cricket, neither numbers nor interpretative dance could offer the slightest solace,’’ Liew wrote of proceedings.

‘‘This was, in theory, the middle day of the series: day three of test three. In fact, it was probably the day the series died. The day it finally lost its last vestiges of mystery or sporting intrigue.’’

Australia captain Steve Smith went to stumps unbeaten on 229, with Mitchell Marsh 181 not out.

Marsh, recalled to the side having played 21 inglorious tests prior, easily eclipsed his previous test-best of 87.

Between them, they added 301 for the fifth wicket, after Marsh’s brother Shaun was dismissed for 28 by Moeen Ali.

‘‘This was brutal. This was torture. It was almost cruel. This was the day when, surely, any hopes England possibly had of retaining the Ashes disappeared. By the close of a totally one-sided third day of the third test they looked completely broken,’’ Paul Newman wrote in the Daily Mail.

‘‘Not only did England have no answer to the extraordinary figure of Steve Smith but, far more worryingly, they looked flat and bereft of all energy, ideas and imagination throughout a day they simply had to be at their best.’’

Newman was particularly critical of England’s pair of newball bowlers.

‘‘Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad are playing in their 100th test together but rarely can they have had a game as bad as this in their illustrious careers, going 57 overs between them without a wicket,’’ wrote Newman.

‘‘Broad is enduring one of his worst ever series and looks no nearer fulfilling his great wish of winning the Ashes in Australia having gone home injured early in 2010 and been a member of Alastair Cook’s thrashed side of four years ago.

‘‘Both went for more than a hundred runs each with Australians proving they do actually have a sense of humour by giving Broad, their favourite pantomime villain, a rapturous ovation when he ‘reached’ three figures.