Ashes UK view: Pommy press sympathetic to pitiful Aussies after second Test hammering Michael Vaughan reviews the Day Four action from Lords. THE English press is trying to process an entirely new emotion in its attempts to analyse the state of Australia's cricket team - pity. Yes, worse than gloating triumphalism, worse than cheap shots and exaggerated critiques, the Pommy press actually, genuinely, properly feels sorry for Australia and its hapless bunch of representative cricketers. The Sun, the loudest patriotic Pommy tub-thumper of them all, might have been screaming "LORD'S OF THE MANOR" and "LOAD OF COBBERS" from its headlines, but was expressing actual sympathy with Australia's plight in smaller text. "England administered such a savage beating that some people are actually starting to feel sorry for Australia," wrote John Etheridge. That's right, sympathy - pity, even - for a cricketing nation that gloatingly thrashed the living daylights out of us Poms for almost two decades. "But such is England's superiority in this Ashes series that the cry has already gone up: "Come on, Cobbers, give us a game." There is an increasingly macabre fascination about whether England can complete a 5-0 whitewash. Blimey mate, there are still three matches to go. But, unless Australia can find a way of challenging England pretty damn quick, this series is going to turn into a humiliating mismatch. The Guardian's Barney Ronay bemoaned the lack of competitiveness and questioned the wisdom of staging 10 Tests in the space of a year. "Less than a fortnight into England's and Australia's conjoined 10-Test Ashes mega-summer it is already tempting to wonder if all this might have been, if not quite a mistake, then perhaps a classic case of too much of a good thing," he wrote. Certainly as England ambled their way through Australia's single-ply batting order ... it was hard to avoid the sense of a fatal diminishing of intensity, perhaps even the first stages of an inexorable descent into glazed and sated cricketing somnolence. Two Tests into the back-to-back series it is starting to look like what it is: a decent team and a poor team playing each other 10 times in a row for no clear reason beyond their own grand and illustrious shared history. Picking his way through Australia's dismissals on a day when they "batted not just poorly but with a hangdog air of impending defeat," Ronay had some caustic words about the grim change in Australia's national mood after the misleading mirage of Trent Bridge. Ashton Agar, presumably scanning the crowd for Hugh Jackman, after being caught off the bowling of Tim Bresnan during Day 4 of the second Ashes Test at Lord's. Ashton Agar - who this time last week was about to become prime minister of Australia - produced a skittish innings ended by a catch behind off Tim Bresnan. No word, as yet, from Hugh Jackman on that one. Ronay even raised the "ghastly" possibility that should Australia continue to play so poorly, England might contemplate resting key players such as Anderson or Swann in this series to keep them fresh for the Australian tour. There is an issue of bad timing here: generally a 10-match extravaganza requires a coherent opposition and Australia, unfortunately, are at a generational low. The Telegraph said the defeat "leaves Australia and the series, as a contest at least, in a parlous state." NSW paceman Trent Copeland discusses Australia's humiliating defeat to England at Lords. "When England's cricket teams were routinely getting skewered in the Ashes between 1989 and 2005, mischievous Aussie administrators used to suggest playing England over four-day Tests," Derek Pringle scribbled gleefully. Well this one finished just inside that limit, so perhaps it should be put back on the table, with the hope it might bring them an odd draw, at least until they find their feet again. Paul Newman in the Daily Mail said it was plainly obvious, despite three Tests remaining, that the Ashes were staying put. Australia could, of course, win the last three Tests but they have only ever done that once and they had Sir Don Bradman batting at three then rather than Usman Khawaja. There is about as much chance of that this time as India willingly embracing the Decision Review System," he wrote. England's superior quality has told at Lord's after an indifferent first day and there would appear to be no way back for Australia now, not when they are such a shambles both on and off the field. They are simply not good enough. Newman wasn't quite as sympathetic to the spirit of competitiveness as other writers, urging England to go for the kill. (England) must be as merciless now as Australia were during eight successive Ashes maulings between 1989 and 2002-03. This is no time to be having sympathy for the old enemy nor to bemoan what looks like being a lack of competitiveness in this series. It is Australia for heaven's sake. Former England captain Mike Atherton, writing in The Times, agreed the series was now over as a contest. "The Ashes are done for another series: just nine days, but there has been enough cricket in that time to know that the task of winning three consecutive Tests to overturn a 2-0 deficit is beyond Australia," he wrote. Only once in Ashes history has that happened, and these Australians are no history boys in the making. Not in the winning sense, at any rate. Australia did not just lose a Test match yesterday, they lost some self-respect, conceding the second-biggest winning margin (in terms of runs) to England in Ashes history. Only once before, in Brisbane in the 1928-29 series, have Australia been beaten by a bigger runs margin than the 347 runs they lost by here. A shellacking, annihilation, a walloping; whatever you want to call it, this was it. One side was playing cricket, the other not, as was said in a different context many years ago. And finally, while his peers were gazing in fascination at the smoking ruin of Australia's cricketing tradition, Simon Barnes of The Times was having none of it, preferring instead to simply enjoy the moment. "Pardon me if I refrain from weeping," he wrote. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but for me at least the novelty of watching an England cricket team beat an Australia cricket team hasn't worn off yet. To tell the truth, it still has the freshness of a five-year-old's Christmas morning. And just as you don't spoil Christmas by asking how much your new trike cost, so you don't spoil an England Ashes victory by dwelling on Australian shortcomings.