Reading the signs 10 ways to tell how the series is going

1

Joe Root, frantically blinking and gurning to adjust to the light, marches to the crease at the Gabba 15 minutes after the start at zip for two having won the toss and bumps fists with Alastair Cook, whose eyes scream: “Mum, it’s happening again.”

Conclusion Be afraid, be very afraid.

2

The Brisbane Couriermail’s back page on the morning of the second day’s play is entirely blank.

Conclusion Stuart Broad has skittled the hosts again.

3

The first Test goes into a fifth day.

Conclusion It’s not going to be so traumatic after all (or there has been a tropical Queensland thunderstorm of biblical proportions).

4

Barmy Army adapt the Sloop John B Mitchell Johnson song for another monstrously quick Aussie but the only rhyme they can find is ‘Pat Cummins, his bowling is bobbins’.

Conclusion England on the up.

5

James Vince creams successive cover drives to start each innings and makes 29, 31, 30 and 26 at the Gabba and Adelaide before nicking off.

Conclusion Geoff Boycott asks Melton Mowbray if they’ve got a pork pie missing.

6

No one mentions Ben Stokes or flies a kite for whisking him over to play in Perth.

Conclusion England are on course to retain the Ashes.

7

You wake mistakenly early a day before the first day of the Waca Test and are overjoyed to hear

Sailing By instead of Soul Limbo. Conclusion Relief from a dread-free night means England are two down.

8

Mark Nicholas, the English host of Channel Nine’s coverage, greets a shot with the words ‘Woof, woof!’

Conclusion David Warner is teeing off.

9

George Garton gets the nod for the Boxing Day Test and says all his Christmases have come at once.

Conclusion This is the worst Christmas of your life.

10

The England management team is not sacked and a review launched into structural failings.

Conclusion The touring side have won – CBES all round.