Australia's extraordinary five-wicket loss to Bangladesh in their triangular series one-day international hit the front pages of a gleeful English media on Sunday.
"Kiss of death for Australia," ran one headline, topping a picture of century maker and man-of-the-match Mohammad Ashraful kissing the Sofia Gardens pitch in Cardiff.
"Humiliated", ran the banner headline of The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph sports sections.
"Now Aussies can't even beat the worst team in the world" topped the Mail on Sunday's report, which began: "Hold everything and please believe what you are about to read no matter how far-fetched it may at first appear."
Quite how the Australians managed to lose remained something of a mystery. England captain Michael Vaughan, asked for his view, refused to comment. Most newspapers put that down to the fact that he was speechless.
They agreed the upset, generally accepted as the biggest in the history of one-day cricket, had been caused by several factors.
They included Ricky Ponting's bizarre decision to bat first on a pitch which predictably got easier as the day progressed, Australian ineptitude across all disciplines and a Bangladesh XI punching way above their weight.
English delight was predictable. The one-day series is the precursor to a much-awaited Ashes, a series England have not got close to winning since 1986-7. Saturday's result, however, saw the home bookies slash the odds on England to 3-1.
To make matters worse, Ponting's side lost their inaugural Twenty20 match against England at the start of the week and then lost a one-day match against Somerset on Wednesday.
Former England captain Michael Atherton, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, said Australia has been "staggeringly inept", addding that the team was "losing their aura and when that happens decline can be rapid".
Yes, they would improve, but their bowling and fielding looked weaker than it had been. "The three defeats last week simply reinforced the impression this is an ageing Austrlalian team whose best days in the field are long behind them," he wrote.
Former Australia fast bowler Geoff Lawson, however, warned that those results should be seen more as three lightning strikes rather than evidence of profound decline in a team who has dominated world cricket for more than a decade.
Under the headline "Good on yer, Bangladesh, for ripping us up" he said the world champions would always have been looking to peak for the tests rather than the one-dayers, adding:
"England should not take too much solace in this historic defeat. The Australians are more likely to be harder to beat over the course of the summer after this loss, rather than easier."
