Mark Wood may have expected to put his feet up, at least for an evening, after the rigours of the opening session. Yet late on the third evening at Hobart, on a day he'd taken a career-best 6 for 39, he was out facing Pat Cummins. If he was indeed frustrated, it showed. He hit the ball as hard as he could for two boundaries before dragging the third one on to his stumps, walking off to some sympathetic applause among the more delirious one.
England have a proclivity for batting collapses but even by their standards, losing all 10 wickets over a 56-run stretch was frightening. Chasing 271, England got their first half-century opening stand of the series. Zak Crawley and Rory Burns put on 68 but two hours after murmurs of a fourth-innings chase began to take shape, they were out shaking hands with the opposition as England folded for 124, conceding the Ashes series 0-4.
Three Australian bowlers - Cameron Green, Scott Boland and Cummins - took three wickets apiece but England, though, were their own worst enemy, with several batsmen guilty of not applying themselves.
England's hopes were dented at the stroke of Tea when Rory Burns played on to a Green delivery. Until then, he and Crawley had survived the vagaries of the pitch and unfurled pleasing drives either side of the wicket.
It was Green who opened the floodgates on the other side of the interval. Dawid Malan wore a bouncer on his head and then chopped a delivery onto his stumps. Crawley, who had moved on to 36 serenely, went searching for a booming drive to a full Green ball that swung away late and nicked off to the keeper. His job done, Green handed over the reins to his more senior bowling partners.
Mitchell Starc had Ben Stokes pulling a short ball straight to deep square leg while Joe Root was the victim of a Boland ball that kept low and disturbed his woodwork. Boland added the wickets of Chris Woakes and Sam Billings before the captain returned to claim three of the final four wickets to finish with a series tally of 21.
Before all the ignominy, Wood had provided genuine grounds for England optimism when he hurled short balls at rapid speed to knock Australia out for 155 in their second innings. His list of victims in the afternoon included Steve Smith who couldn't control a pull shot and holed out at fine leg. Wood's six-over burst (3 for 12) in the first session had Australia reduced to 63/6 with a sub-200 target on the cards. Alex Carey, though, scored a valuable 49 after being dismissed off a no-ball to push the total to 270. It was a target too far for this England batting line-up, who couldn't cash the cheque that Wood had written.
