After the unbelievable ashes series and following on from a series of good results last year, we all started to believe that once again England had a team of world beaters, capable of giving the Aussies a beating for years to come. Under a mass of press coverage the England players were hailed as sporting heroes and a sense of correctness seemed to settle on the cricketing world. England were back on top, no longer the laughing stock of world cricket. We had cured the age old problem of the traditional English batting collapse and fielded a middle order capable of scoring runs, along with the emergence of a world class four seamer attack capable of undoing the best batting line up in the world. Not for no good reason was there cause for rejoicing as we took back the ashes after lending them to Australia for the best part of two decades. All seemed right with the world.

Three months on and we are staring down the barrel of defeat in Pakistan in the third test of a three match series in which we have lost one and been lucky to draw the other. Is this the same team?