Tym Glaser, Associate Editor - Sport

THE ENGLISH have endured some pretty miserable tours to Australia over the years.

Like, it couldn't exactly have been a boatload of laughs if you were among the unfortunates to be transported Down Under with the First Fleet in 1788 - or on subsequent hauls across the Pacific with RSL (Rum, Sodomy and Lash) Cruises.

Of course, if you thought the trip was bad, just imagine how great it must have felt to arrive in a great big land thousands of miles away and find it full of ... nothing.

Then, of course, came the inland tours where explorers like the ill-fated Burke and Wills and Edward John Eyre wandered the great island from south to north (B&W) and east to west (EJE) just to prove there really was nothing at the heart of the continent after all.

For their efforts, B&W died slowly of starvation and EJE, after nearly starving, went on to become one of Jamaica's most notorious colonial governors who made Paul Bogle and George W. Gordon into National Heroes by stringing them up in Morant Bay.

Food aplenty

Of course, there's now food aplenty in the Land of Plenty and if you really want to see the nothingness of the Outback, you can do it in air-conditioned luxury.

Still, the English find ways to torture themselves upon Australian shores without really trying a whole heap.

Take, for instance, Scot Mike Denness and his touring England cricket team of 1974-75 which included the likes of Tony Greig, John Edrich, Bob Willis, Alan Knott, Colin Cowdrey, Derek Underwood, Dennis Amiss and Keith Fletcher.

They looked good on paper until Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson tore 'em apart on the field and relegated them to a 4-1 Ashes drubbing.

That looked almost as sickly as Burke and Wills at the infamous DIG Tree (where food was buried but they couldn't dig it up coz they were too weak) until 'Freddy' Flintoff and his mob touched down last November.

After a mere 2 1/2 months, they notched up victory No. 1 against the hosts yesterday after historically losing the Ashes 5-0 and getting progressively worse and worse in the one-day form of the game (yesterday's anomaly aside).

Maybe their time would have been better spent in the footsteps of EJE, trekking the thousands of miles between South Australia and Western Australia rather than plodding around the island's cricket fields.

As tours go, this must rate as the worst by an England cricket team - ever.

After all, this was the side that was awarded MBEs a mere 15 months before for clinching the Ashes in a series for the ages.

Royal showdown

Sure they lost skipper Mike Vaughan and talented swing bowler Simon Jones to injury and Marcus Trescothick to a breakdown before the Test series began, but the bulk of that triumphant side was intact and a right royal showdown was expected even though the Aussies were expected to win.

Instead, England and the much-anticipated great summer of cricket went flatter than a beer left out in the sun.

Kevin Pietersen, pre-injury, and Monty Panesar showed heart for the fight but the rest were just plain pathetic and let themselves, their army of travelling fans and their country down in an insipid fashion.

It was a tour from hell and it can't be over soon enough for the Poms who now, somehow, have to regroup in almost no time for the Cricket World Cup!

Maybe a nice little trip back to the Old Dart on a circa-1788 RSL ship would do the trick for that sorry bunch.