Adelaide is known as ‘the City of Churches’ and England women’s cricket team need all the spiritual help they can get right now. After losing their sixth white-ball game in the seven-match Women’s Ashes series at South Australia’s famous stadium, a whitewash is truly odds-on favorite. Australia’s Grace Harris has already surmised that it would be good to “embarrass” the visitors. No mercy.

A final scoreline of 16-0 would read like a rugby match and the tourists might as well change the ball shape before rocking up to Melbourne for the Test match next week. The wheels and hub caps have come off the tour bus and the excuses from skipper Heather Knight and head coach Jon Lewis are coming as thick and fast as their batting collapses.

The latest blowout was the worst of the dirty half-dozen. England were bowled out for 90 chasing a tricky but gettable 163. Sophia Dunkley and Danni Wyatt-Hodge tried to go big but just spooned catches up that Australia took with gleeful ease. The classiest batter of the side, Natalie Sciver-Brunt, received a beauty of a ball but has only once gone past 35 on the tour. The rest of the batting unit was obliterated in a mix of feeble shot selection and excellent bowling. England’s men know all too well how a tour of Australia can disintegrate, but their torture plays out over five Tests.

This series stopped being a contest when the visitors passed up a real opportunity to win the ODI at Melbourne, but the lack of outward honesty about the gulf between the two teams has been astonishing.

After Saturday’s loss at Adelaide, there was some belated admissions by both captain and Lewis that their team had been outplayed on this occasion. “It’s a poor batting performance and we hold our hands up to that. This tour, we’ve practised really really well, but we haven’t played very well. The bit that we’re missing when we cross the line, as to how we go out and perform. For the players and the coaching staff, that’s really frustrating,” admitted Lewis.

Skipper Knight was struggling to hold back the tears as she admitted that the tour had been a “brutal” one. The sight of her standing drenched at Canberra as the second T20 was lost was her Rishi Sunak Downing Street drowning moment.

Knight took on the leadership from Charlotte Edwards in 2016 after England’s performances and standards had dipped alarmingly. Within 18 months, the team had won a memorable World Cup final against India at Lord’s. However, there’s a similar taste, feel and smell to the end of a regime here.

This series has underlined a stark difference between the standards in training, mindset and carrying out plans on the actual pitch. Lewis has been at constant pains to point out that accusations of a lack of fitness in the camp are misguided. Former player Alex Hartley says she has been ostracised by some members of the current squad after speaking out on this in her role as commentator for the BBC.

Last month, Knight called for pay parity between the genders after it was announced that the top male bracket salaries of the Hundred competition would rise by 60 per cent compared to the 30 per cent for elite women. In August 2023, England’s women achieved equality in terms of international match fees of their male counterparts.

That progress was made in the aftermath of a competitive drawn Women’s Ashes series at home. The Australians retained their urn but were pushed by an England side that had plenty more moments and victories than they are going to achieve here. There was a feelgood aspect that the gap wasn’t as vast as before. That visage has been crushed.

As more money comes into the game, expectations of a better product increase. There are no sunny uplands to enjoy from this complete disaster, yet Lewis was still claiming player development was growing and that he had enjoyed the experience. It struck completely the wrong tone and took away anything neutral eyeballs could observe. England have failed to be competitive when any hint of pressure is on, just as they did against the West Indies in the World Cup.

Australia’s professionalism always sings the loudest and it deafens this version of England. Over the last decade, Australia’s women have benefited from the revenue-sharing model alongside their male counterparts. In April 2023, Cricket Australia announced a new pay deal increase of 66 per cent which means that women who hold a top-tier central contract and play in the BBL could potentially earn up to $666,000. Their model is always ahead of the curve which is currently downward for England.

Australia has held the Ashes since 2014 and even this non-vintage team led by Tahlia McGrath have been just way too good. Ellyse Perry has barely contributed and Alyssa Healy is injured, but Beth Mooney’s batting has been well above anything England could produce. Alana King and Georgia Wareham’s leg breaks are bamboozling their opponents.

England’s women cricketers don’t have the pool of talent or the lucrative and competitive climate that produces the cool and composed skill needed in the pressure cooker. Something has to change even if there’s an unlikely consolation win at the MCG.