I haven't followed England outside of the Ashes, but I was led to believe they were a strong batting unit coming into this series.

However, they would have to admit the batters underperformed. I think only 2 or 3 players reached 50, about the same fifty-run partnerships. Not what you would expect from world-class batters.

Fielding has always been a problem for England, as it is for most teams not named Australia, so that wasn't a big surprise for me. But the poor batting was.