I'm no stranger to abject displays of ineptitude. I've followed English cricket with a passion and intensity that has been only occasionally rewarded since the rain free summer of 1976.
I've spent days at the Oval watching Wasim and Waqar rip through a generation of new Bothams (Pringle, Capel, Ian Greig). I've sat through Javed Miandad batting for weeks against Foster, Nick Cook and a slew of bit part 4 test wonders.
I've experienced the humiliation of losing to a mediocre New Zealand team. Of propping up the ICC test rankings. Of picking four captains in an English summer. Of Tim Curtis, Martin McCague and Alan Mulally.
So I feel particularly well qualified to pronounce judgement on this current Australian side.
Much like those mediocre English teams of the past, it contains a smattering of high quality players. Ponting, Hussey, Haddin and Watson are fine test match performers. But they carry the hangdog countenance of tortured men.
No matter how good a player you are, if your bowlers inflict hours of wicketless tedium on you in searing heat spread out over days containing not the faintest glimmer of threat, your spirits will take a pounding.
And for the fourth time in five Ashes days England's batsmen have dominated Australia's bowlers. With the exception of a forty minute period after lunch when North and Watson applied a measure of control, the English top order scored runs at will. When you're relying on North and Watson to slow the scoring you know you're in epoch making trouble.
The day began with Cook eyeing another double hundred and Pieterson in sight of his first test match ton since March 2009. Australian sides of even 6 months ago would conversely have sensed an opportunity to knock over a couple of quick wickets with the new ball and expose England's tail. Instead, Ponting went straight on the defensive.
This played into Pieterson hands who began fluently. There was no pressure as he eased through the 90s to his inevitable ton.
Sure, Harris bowled a good early spell, but again Bollinger failed to justify the pre-series hype. Doherty looked like a trivia question waiting to happen, and Siddle served up 80 mph half trackers that KP smashed between the three boundary riders on the leg side.
At least they managed to get Cook with a decent effort that came back into the left hander and induced an inside edge to Haddin who took his catch brilliantly diving to his right. But thereafter it was a replay of yesterday and the last two days at the Gabba.
Collingwood, who in theory was under a modicum of pressure following his Gabba failure played like a man who never expected to get out, playing his limited range of shots with fluency in a stand of 101 that took just 21 overs.
Watson managed to conjure a straight ball that trapped Colly on the crease, but this only brought England’s form batsman, Ian Bell to the wicket. Had rain not intervened with the score on 551-4, England would surely have registered their fourth consecutive century stand.
Australia have managed to take England’s last five wickets at an eye watering cost of 1068 runs. When Pieterson notched up his double century it was only the second time in Ashes history that two Englishmen have scored double centuries in the same series.
And Pieterson’s 213 is the highest score by any “Englishman” at Adelaide, coming hot on the heels of Cook’s highest Gabba score last week.
Again the pitch didn’t suit the seamers, but North managed to get his first two balls to turn square. What Warne, Grimmett, O’Reilly, Benaud, even Macgill could do on this surface doesn’t bear thinking about.
Dammit, Bangladesh gave England a harder going over earlier in the year.
Perhaps rain will save Australia, but it won't prevent the press and public from conducting a confused and noisy inquest into their abject failings in the bowling department. Where can they turn next? Hauritz? Recall Johnson? Change the rules to allow Tait and Nannes to play. Coax Benaud and Warne out of retirement?
Don't get me wrong, it is fun for an Englishman to wallow in Aussie misery. But I expected a more gradual slide to ineptitude. After all, most of this side managed to lose by only one wicket to the number one ranked side in the world at Mohali only two months ago.
But two months ago, the heart, soul and spirit of the better Aussie players hadn't been sapped by wicketless days in the field, dropped catches, woeful ground fielding and the horrible feeling that over the half team aren’t up to test cricket.
We are living in an inverted world where Australians whine about being sledged and pray for rain. But you know, I think I could learn to like it.