Now the wheel has turned full circle, it's time to be ruthless, time to get angry.
When England lost to New Zealand in 1999, and new captain Nasser Hussain was booed on the balcony, The Oval was Dunces' Corner. England were the worst Test team in world cricket. Somehow, we had managed to pick a team containing four No.11 batsmen - Andy Caddick, Alan Mullally, Phil Tufnell and Ed Giddins – and be surprised that we lost. More rabbits than Watership Down. Thanks to Hussain's alliance with a new coach, Duncan Fletcher, then Michael Vaughan's thrilling Ashes-winning crusade and Sir Andrew Strauss harnessing the winds of change, England made it to No.1 in the charts by 2011.
Now the return journey to the is complete. The 10-wicket defeat by West Indies in Grenada was a staggering triumph of complacency by a team annihilated 4-0 in the Ashes earlier in the winter (and it would have been 5-0 if last man Jimmy Anderson had not blocked the last ball nervelessly in Sydney).
A changing of the guard is required – because this shambles cannot be allowed to continue. When officers bring shame upon the regiment, it is customary for them to reach for the revolver in the drawer and do the decent thing, so here's hoping Joe Root has read the room. Wonderful batsman, good-natured bloke and popular as he is, Root has presided over a shocking run of five consecutive Test series defeats in little more than a calendar year (home and away against India, New Zealand, Australia and in the Caribbean) with one win in 17 games.
Even at their worst, even at their most infuriating, in the last two decades of the 20th century, England never went on a comparable losing streak. Root wants to stay on as skipper and turn the ship around, but a captain called Edward Smith wanted to turn his ship around, too - unfortunately, the iceberg had inflicted too much damage and the Titanic went down.
So here's the deal: No half-baked measures, no half-truths, just a little brutal honesty is in order.
Justin Langer should be appointed as England's new head coach without further delay. Anyone who picks a fight with 'Alfie' had better be ready to be tasered by the most piercing, laser-like, thousand-yard stare in world sport. The former Aussie opener lives by three golden rules: Respect is earned, not a privilege; believe in your ability; and regret nothing. He will tell you: “Mate, you’re the only one who can change things. They don’t change by themselves - you’re in control.”
Langer's first conversation must be with Root. After five years and 64 Tests as captain, he has won 27 and lost 26, with almost half those defeats coming in the last 15 months. Unless Langer sees no viable alernative, Root's most honourable course will be to quit while he's still ahead, with thanks for staying on the bridge during two years of endless bubbles – or he must face the prospect of being sacked.
Ben Stokes, who has a fertile cricket brain, should be installed as Test captain with a licence to give up one version of the white-ball game to limit his workload. Since Twenty20 franchises remain the fastest route to topping up your pension, I would respectfully suggest Stokes – a 50-over World Cup winner in 2019 – parks one-day internationals for now. Big Ben should be a specialist batsman who bowls a bit – for impact, not as a shire horse who is flogged to within a nosebag of burnout – and occupy the No.5 spot. If it is his wish to restore Anderson and Stuart Broad to the starting XI against New Zealand at Lord's in June, it should be granted without hesitation.
To leave England's two most successful bowlers of all time, with 1,177 Test wickets between them, out of the Caribbean tour was a monstrous act of self-harm on a par with Brexit. Anderson and Broad may not have made much headway on two dead surfaces in Antigua and Barbados, but where medium-paced Windies destroyer Kyle Mayers made hay in Grenada, our double act could have made haystacks.
But above all, change must come from the top. Captains of industry have to lead with authority, so England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Tom Harrison can close the door behind him on his way out.
Harrison has presided over the introduction of The Hundred, a form of the game no other nation plays, and ECB executives perversely awarded themselves £2.1 million of bonuses for its conception and delivery while the sport dabbled with financial apocalypse during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, four-day county cricket was shunted into the margins – and now we are supposed to be surprised that Root, Stokes and, at a pinch, Jonny Bairstow are the only Test-class batsmen left.
Angry? This England cricket fan, who fell in love with a game decorated by Sir Geoffrey Boycott's obdurate bat, Alan Knott's dotty wicketkeeping skill, Raymond Illingworth's wisdom and then Lord Botham of Ravensworth's buccaneering feats, has had enough. Joe Root is a fantastic player, and he bats at No.3 for me every time, but he's now the Grand Old Duke of Yorkshire. England marched to the top of the hill, but he's marched them down again.
We are back at the nadir of 1999. The punters in the shires are not happy. They will not keep paying to watch nice chaps get soundly beaten.
And if the clots in charge at ECB can't hear the alarm bells growing louder, there's nobody at home in the belfry.
