Any cricket is better than no cricket? England's ten most abject overseas defeats

It all started so promisingly, with David Gower's hundred and a heroic 6 for 82 from Angus Fraser, and when Graham Gooch and Wayne Larkins carried England to a lead of 149 with nine wickets standing … well, what could possibly go wrong? But that was nothing compared to the team for the first Test itself … which featured no fewer than four front-line seamers, but neither of England's first-choice spinners, John Emburey and Phil Tufnell - Ian Salisbury was pitched in instead after turning a few leggies in the nets. India, by contrast (and you sense they may have had the inside track here…) plumped for two allrounders in Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar, who bowled fewer than ten overs in either innings, and a three-prong spin attack including the young Anil Kumble. In scenes eerily reminiscent of that 2013-14 meltdown, a team led by Peter May and boasting stars such as Colin Cowdrey, Jim Laker and Fred Trueman were routed 4-0 by Richie Benaud's resurgent Aussies. There were some righteous gripes about a few bowling actions - Ian Meckiff's left-arm exocets were particularly disconcerting - but after three Ashes wins in a row, it was the squad's collective failure to keep their eyes on the ball that cost them dearest. England folded for 127 on the first day in Antigua before Clayton Lambert and Philo Wallace - less Greenidge and Haynes, more Laurel and Hardy - spanked their side to an impregnable lead with the most unedifying top-order slogging ever witnessed in the Caribbean. In between the white-water rafting and newspaper allegations of pot smoking, they somehow failed to turn up for the second Test in Christchurch, where instead a team of cyphers "put up an exhibition," according to Wisden , "that would have shamed a side in the lower reaches of the County Championship". The new captain, Andrew Strauss, and new coach Andy Flower, attempted to heal the wounds of a traumatised squad, only for Jerome Taylor to inflict a whole new world of pain on an inspired afternoon at Sabina Park. So while it would be rude to overlook the extraordinary, indefatigable, over-my-dead-body magnificence of Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, the last true kings of the Caribbean, it would also be out-of-kilter to ignore the accidents, errors and ineptitudes that led to England being routed for 46 all out. It would be remiss not to remind Graeme Hick, for instance, of the two crucial chances he spilled at slip off the teenaged Shivnarine Chanderpaul, that effectively doubled England's target from a docile 100-odd to a daunting 194.