He has won six games in a row, most of them after playing so badly that his team seemed to be heading for ignominious defeat.

This ignominious defeat underlines the club's urgent need to sign a striker before the transfer window closes on Thursday.

The man who handed over the Ashes to England for the first time in a generation stood on the threshold of another ignominious defeat yesterday.

But he will also recall that his first Test match as captain proper ended in ignominious defeat in Jamaica and sympathy was in short supply then.