England own-goals have scuppered Ashes tour from the start

England’s Ashes tour had the whiff of disaster about it even before the squad had been announced, following the arrest of Ben Stokes in Bristol in September.

From that moment to today, when the Ashes were surrendered, England’s hopes have been beset by a series of off-field incidents and reflected by equally self-inflicted wounds on the field.

Steve Smith’s Australians have been by far the better team and deserve their success — but England have given them plenty of help.

The arrest of Stokes on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm following a late-night fracas outside Bristol’s Mbargo nightclub came just days before England announced their squad for this series.

Indeed, so bad was the timing that the star all-rounder was originally named in the line-up before the England and Wales Cricket Board hastily made him “unavailable for selection until further notice”.

The legal process with regards to Stokes is ongoing and he is still waiting to find out if he will be charged or not. But his absence — and subsequent relocation to play in New Zealand for Christchurch — has created a circus around this tour that has surely distracted Joe Root and his players.

To make matters worse, the subsequent airing of more off-field incidents, starting with Jonny Bairstow’s ‘headbutt’ greeting to Australia opener Cameron Bancroft on the first night of the tour in Perth’s Avenue Bar and finishing with England Lions player Ben Duckett pouring a drink over the head of Jimmy Anderson at the same bar last week, further destabilised the squad.

The imposition of a curfew when the Bairstow incident was revealed at the end of the First Test in Brisbane did not go down well with the players.

Duckett’s dousing of Anderson, on the one night the curfew was relaxed, has led senior figures within England’s team management — including coach Trevor Bayliss — to warn that two or three problem characters in the current squad could be frozen out come the end of the tour.

But it is too late to rescue this tour and if Stokes’s absence was akin to England having one hand tied behind their back, then what has happened since can only be described as the team voluntarily handcuffing the other to a chair.

Could England have retained the Ashes with Stokes? Probably not. Their bowling attack and the output of senior batsmen — Root, Alastair Cook and Moeen Ali, in particular — has just not been good enough.

But the presence of the Test vice- captain surely would have helped. Is Root, who vouched for the 26-year-old to be his deputy when taking over the captaincy from Cook earlier this year, angry with Stokes?

“I’m not going to make excuses about things that are out of our control,” Root said today. “We knew he wasn’t going to be on the tour from the very start and I was very confident this group of players could come out here and win. Unfortunately, it’s not turned out like that but there is an opportunity for the two very big games at two fantastic venues to do something special with this squad.”

England will take a long hard look at their next squad for the two-Test series in New Zealand, starting in February. Names that could be in contention to come in are fast bowler Mark Wood and Toby Roland-Jones, the Middlesex fast bowler, who had an encouraging first Test summer but missed this tour with a back injury. Both would be welcome additions.

Senior players in Cook (right) and Stuart Broad have let the team down badly in this series, while Anderson has performed well but is now 35.

Does Root envisage all three being in the team this time next year?

“I’d like to think so,” he said. “They have a huge amount of experience and they do offer a lot to this group. Their performances over a long period of time speak for themselves.”

Over the short term, though, perhaps their positions have become vulnerable.