So 1,577 days of gloating were ended by a simple bat-pad catch to short leg.

Steve Smith accepted the gift from Jimmy Anderson and the Ashes were returning to the Southern Hemisphere.

How we’ve enjoyed Australia’s discomfort since 2009; how we’ve laughed at turning over the oldest enemy, both home and away.

Not any longer. The amusing Fred Boycott parody Twitter feed tried to claim that it was 3-3 with all to play for in the ten-match series but sadly aggregate scores from the year’s two series are not taken into account.

England have no credit in the bank – to go with absence of any on the pitch. It has been a dire performance.

The only goal now is to avoid a 2006-2007 style whitewash. But even if they do recover enough to nick a Test back in either Melbourne or Sydney that will simply paper over the largest of cracks.

All the talk now is of ripping up the scorebook and starting again from scratch. Wrong move. Yes, there are players who need to be moved on now but there is no need for a knee-jerk response of bombing the lot of them.

Matt Prior’s days behind the stumps are surely at an end, Tim Bresnan brings little to the party away from traditional English conditions and, purr-lease, can we finally wave good bye Jack Wilshere-style to that one man circus act Kevin Pietersen.

He’s a fantastic talent, without doubt. But he’s also a grade A prima donna who only seemed interested in what is best for brand KP.

The saying goes that there is no I in team. Nor is there a K or a P.

His dismissal in the second innings at Perth was negligence of the highest order.

The Aussies set the trap to play to his ego. Get the spinner to keep tossing them up and he won’t be able to resist trying to batter the cover off the ball.

True to form, he thumped a few belligerent boundaries and then he holed out to long on. The fielder had to take barely five steps in from the rope to take the catch.

Pietersen had fallen to the oldest trick in the book.

It was a typical show of arrogance from a player who bats when he wants to; a lazy waft that might as well have delivered the little urn to Michael Clarke there and then.

Pietersen was in good company. His was not the only “you cannot be serious” departure on that fourth afternoon.

Joe Root is going to be a serious batter for years to come. But what was he doing chasing a wide one that was heading nearer second slip than off stump?

And then there was Ian Bell’s ridiculous 20/20 attempt to feather the ball over the wicketkeeper’s head.

There was one of England’s most senior figures tossing his wicket away as if it was no more than a cursory run chase at a county out ground. Nope, pal, this was supposed to be the final, defiant stand to cling on to the Ashes...

But despite that mental aberration, Bell’s position in the England middle order should not be threatened.

His nomination in the Sports Personality of the Year short-list reminded everyone of the runs he churned out against the same bowlers in the summer.

Alastair Cook, too, should not be fighting for his job as captain. This is the toughest challenge of his career right now but form will undoubtedly return and when he gets in, there are few such immovable objects in the world game.

After a century of Tests, you don’t suddenly turn into a duffer in the space of three defeats.

But somebody needs to have a word with him on selection. Why on earth did they omit any of the big men for the bounciest track of the tour at the WACA?

And he could be a tad more reactive as the game unfolds. But then the critics were saying the same of Clarke when the Aussie knives were out a few months ago.

Australia’s team are no world beaters. In fact, they’ve been beaten more often than not.

But they suspected the potential was still there and they have proved it with a month’s total domination in their own back yard.

Put simply, they didn’t panic when the brickbats were flying. Now England must do the same.

Some changes are required but there are green shoots of recovery in the shape of Ben Stokes, who scored a wonderful hundred, and Root.

Michael Carberry, THAT dropped catch aside, showed the stomach for a fight in the opening slot.

It doesn’t sound much comfort right now but the pain of such abject defeat will ease. It won’t take too much to get England winning again.

This is the time for cool contemplation; not hot-headedness.