England need head of comedy to expose Australian mischief

Ashes hosts’ risible mind games continually got under skin of the tourists who must learn to counter the onslaught next time by firing back their own jokes

England’s backroom staff is already ample, but room could be made for one more post: a head of comedy, to expose Australia’s relentless mischief and stop Ashes tours being a marathon of reactive PR.

As Jon Ronson explores in his book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, forcing people into a cringe position is now easy, and Australia used the tactic mercilessly in their 4-0 series win. They were accomplished “shamers”, adapting Steve Waugh’s “mental disintegration” to modern usage, sending denigration viral and making England appear besieged from the moment they stepped off the plane.

Over the five Tests, I kept a mental note of Australian provocations, which followed a pattern, even if there was probably no individual Machiavelli in a control centre tossing a Baggy Green cap in the air every time a hit was scored.

Australian propaganda approach). In retrospect, for example, the Jonny Bairstow butt furore should have been laughed out of court, and exposed for what it was: a belated exaggeration of a minor bump, channelled through sledging, some of which allegedly became very “personal” from the Australian side (which, in turn, England and Bairstow chose not to expose).

The chronology is instructive, and began with the King of Charm, David Warner, who punched Joe Root in Birmingham’s Walkabout Bar in 2013, claiming England had