It has been a long week for Australia captain Ricky Ponting.
He was laughing things off on Monday, spitting blood on Wednesday, incredulous on Saturday and looking for silver linings on Sunday as he pondered a world turned upside down.
The world champions began their tour of England being compared to Don Bradman's 1948 Invincibles.
By Sunday, they had been beaten four times inside seven days -- twice by England, once by Somerset and once, most incredibly of all, by Bangladesh, the game's bottom-ranked international team.
Quite what it all means before the Ashes is not clear.
Ponting remains outwardly cool, even if he did mention panic buttons following the mind-boggling defeat by Bangladesh, widely seen as the biggest shock in international cricket history.
He has a point. Even England captain Michael Vaughan agreed that Monday's Twenty20 match in Southampton represented a lottery.
But the home side still won, and by 100 runs. If England had lost, Australia would surely have given it more weight.
The loss to Somerset at Taunton, Australia have since pointed out, was largely the work of two non-Englishmen -- Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya and Graeme Smith of South Africa.
AUSSIE ARROGANCE
But there too, questions remain. The Australians retired two batsmen, never a sign of respect, and failed to defend a massive total of 342.
Against Bangladesh on Saturday, Ponting opted to bat first on a juicy pitch that cried out for a bowl. He later suggested he had mis-read it but most observers suspected arrogance.
The Australians, discounting defeat, had opted for a little batting practice and ended with the mother of all omelettes on their faces.
A bemused Ponting struggled to make sense of the result, as did the dancing Bangladeshis, who chased down 250 for victory thanks to a run-a-ball century from Mohammad Ashraful.
"It's a bad start to the series for us," he said. "If you lose to Bangladesh you should be a little worried. They got those runs pretty easily."
For more than a decade the world champions, the epitome of ruthless professionalism, have ground the opposition into the dust, in so doing acquiring an aura worth 50 runs before the toss of any coin.
Yet here they were losing to a side whose previous one-day successes included victories over Kenya, Scotland and Hong Kong.
The world champions are a well-oiled machine. Yet all rounder Andrew Symonds was the best oiled of all in Cardiff, turning up in the hotel lobby after spending the night on the town.
LACK OF RESPECT
Symonds was suspended and fined. Again, it showed a lack of respect for the game.
England have not merited much Australian respect since 1986-87, when they last won the Ashes.
Ponting says no Englishman except Andrew Flintoff would merit consideration for his team.
But on Sunday Steve Harmison took a career-best five wickets for 33, Kevin Pietersen hit a blistering 91 off 65 balls and England edged home by three wickets.
Again, the world champions appeared sloppy. Normally their planning is meticulous, with a dash of oriental philosophy thrown in. This time, their captain conceded, they had only just arrived at the County Ground in time for the game.
"We were a fraction late," Ponting said. "We got held up with the traffic. We actually dragged our bags about a kilometre, so that was our warm-up done."
After the loss, however, Australia's second in 16 one-dayers against the English, Ponting sounded upbeat.
"There was a lot of improvement today," he said.
"There are lots of good signs going forward. I would like to think that we have enough time to build up some momentum before the Test series. A win wasn't far away today. There's plenty of time."
Australia remain the Ashes favourites but suddenly England think an ageing team may just be mortal.
England's successes in 2004, including a record eight Test wins in a row, cannot just be discounted because they were not against Australia.
It is hard to put an exact price on confidence but England are full of the stuff. When was the last time you heard an Australian captain sounding so positive after losing to England?
(Reuters)
