If England lose in Adelaide this week then smug Brendon McCullum should go – Bazball has one match to avoid wasting itself or it is time to deliver an finish to this bluster-filled nonsense, writes IAN HERBERT

The vocabulary of the alpha male very much prevails as England look to staunch the tidal wive of humiliation which the Ashes has brought. Ben Stokes is apparently looking for ‘dog’ in his players in Adelaide, having concluded after the capitulation in Brisbane that his dressing room was ‘no place for weak men’.

No discussion from the leader, there, of such nuanced qualities as intelligence, thoughtfulness, attrition and guile, because they don’t conform with a Bazball religion in which any form of contemplation is deemed feeble, outdated and heretical. 

England can lose as often as they like and we still see the same insouciant Brendon McCullum, with that same smug smile playing across his face. He was quoting Rudyard Kipling on Sunday, suggesting his players have been ‘outstanding’ over the last week and suggesting that moments like this are ‘the fun stuff’.

Good luck to anyone seeking to challenge the all-seeing and all-knowing McCullum and Stokes, the self-styled saviours of Test cricket, who seem to believe they have been doing the English game an almighty favour by showing all the old principles the door.

It was hard to see how the BBC’s Jonathan Agnew could have been more diplomatic when, in the aftermath of the Perth defeat, he suggested to Stokes the merits of England accepting the chance to play a pink-ball tour match before encountering that very same challenge in the Brisbane second Test. 

‘We believe and we trust in our process,’ replied Stokes, quoting the management manual. When Agnew pushed the point, he said: ‘I’ve just answered that question.’

Harry Brook looks to the heavens after throwing his wicket away on day one at the Gabba, when he chased the first ball he faced of a new Mitchell Starc spell and sent it to the slips

Good luck to anyone seeking to challenge the all-seeing, all-knowing England boss Brendon McCullum – but if England lose in Adelaide it will be yet another series his side haven’t won

What came to pass in the second Test, with Australia shaping the game to ensure their bowlers worked with the evening moisture at the Gabba, rendered that decision, and Stokes’ peremptory tone with Agnew, a disgrace. 

Since Brisbane, we’ve seen McCullum’s jolly boys at Noosa on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast – hanging out, enjoying some beers and laying themselves out on the sand for some rest after six shambolic days of Ashes cricket. The optics have been atrocious.

That same air of inviolability surfaced on Sunday in McCullum’s promise that England’s aggressive style of batting will not change and his insistence that his top seven will remain the same.

Zak Crawley is at risk of seeing his Test average dip below 30 – not the return that any high-class Test side wants in an opener. Ollie Pope looks psychologically shot – a haunted man, without a half century in 14 Ashes innings and a batting average of 18.71 against Australia.

And Brook, England’s ultimate cock of the walk, is so consumed by a sense of his own brilliance that he concludes he can throw the bat at everything with hard hands. After the brainless attempted scoop of a Michael Neser delivery in Brisbane, 10 balls after reaching the crease, came the hard flash at the first delivery he faced of Starc’s new spell which sent the ball into the hands of Steve Smith at slip.

There was a vague hint of contrition from Brook on Sunday, when he said that two of his dismissals in Perth and Brisbane came from ‘shocking shots’ and that he needed ‘to rein it in a little bit’. But this did not exactly sound like a fundamental rethink.

‘Hopefully I can turn up, stick to my processes and stay in the moment as much as possible,’ he said, also swallowing the manual. ‘And what will be will be.’

Yes, it really is in the lap of the Gods because England are so consumed with the idea they have it right that there is next to no back-up for their chronic under-performers. It’s what you reap when you tell a team how good they are, and back them unconditionally, even when they’re failing.

Captain Ben Stokes hits the beach in Noosa with the England squad following their second Test capitulation. The optics are terrible    

Ollie Pope looks psychologically shot – a haunted man, without a half century in 14 Ashes innings and a batting average of 18.71 against Australia

Zak Crawley is at risk of seeing his Test average dip below 30 – not the return that any high-class Test side wants in an opener

Well, the moment of truth has arrived for McCullum and his creed. Lose in Adelaide and England will not even have managed to keep this tour alive beyond Christmas – an aim which was always the minimum requirement.

The contemporary thirst for the instantaneous thrill led many to look to Bazball as a form of existential salvation for our Test cricket, yet it has left us with a side incapable of batting out 125 overs. A side who could not win the Ashes at home, who were picked apart in India, found wanting when hosting India last summer and have been a national embarrassment so far this winter. A side who have not won a five-Test series under this management.

Another defeat, to surrender the Ashes series, would be the moment to show McCullum the door, to restore sense, and to plot a course which marries modern, calculated aggression with technique, discipline and the ability to bat long. A little more humility and contrition would not go amiss, either.

Sir Alastair Cook observed during one recent TV commentary session that there were other means of run-accumulation than the method which is extremely rapid and painfully brief. 

‘Flexibility is an asset,’ he said, faltering slightly while uttering this heresy. The apologetic tone from one of the greats of our game was a measure of how far the current madness has gone.