Aussies will always relish being a pain COMMENT

ENGLAND will leave Brisbane with huge regrets after being dismantled by the Aussies.

The Gabba remains the life force of Australian cricket. Their players are inspired by this place while teams such as England wilt.

By day four, the Aussies were ready to pull away and boy did they leave England spluttering in their wake.

If this were the London Marathon, England would still be staggering around Canary Wharf while Australia are waving on The Mall.

Joe Root’s plan here is for his side to stay in the game for as long as possible, take it deep into day five then pounce and for three days England thought they were keeping pace with Australia.

But the truth is that in the big moments, they rested and in Test cricket if you do not take chances when you have them, you are left behind.

James Vince’s run out gave Australia a lift they barely deserved on the first day and when they were 245-4 Dawid Malan sparked a familiar collapse that saw them bowled out for 302.

And when they had Australia at 209-7 they somehow allowed them to take a lead into the second innings.

These are the moments England will rue between this game and the day-nighter in Adelaide, knowing that in many ways they are the architects of their own downfall.

“There are quite a few regrets,” said Moeen Ali. “With the bat we had biggish partnerships, but the run out of Vince was big.

“We had them 70-4 and never got the wicket. Steve Smith was the difference with the bat and without him they would have struggled. He played very well. Those are the two big regrets.”

These moments on their own are not insurmountable, but when you put them together with further mishaps with the bat second time around, they add up to an opening Test thumping that will in all probability lead to a series defeat.

Too negative? Maybe, but when you consider the last time Australia won the first Test at the Gabba then lost a series was in 1954-55, you can see the task facing England.

It is hard for England to take positives from such a matter-of-fact loss, but perhaps those missed chances will be a crumb of comfort.

Kingstonian (0) 2 Heybridge (1) 2 Cardiff Met Uni (0) 0 Connah’s Quay Nomads (0) 0 Sri Lanka 205 (L Chandimal 57, R Ashwin 4-67) & 21-1 v India 610-6 dec (V Kohli 213, C Pujara 143, M Vijay 128, R Sharma 102 no) QPR v Brentford (7.45) Australia v England WELCOME to Australia, where the flies may well be your only friends. That is what Douglas Jardine was told during Bodyline and it still rings true today, as England’s current crop of Ashes hopefuls are finding out. Already up against it having been...