Boom or bust for England's top six

With little over a year until England select a squad for the next Ashes tour, they are little closer to solving the perennial problem that is their top six.

The tormented trio of Alex Hales, James Vince and Gary Ballance were the major reasons why Alastair Cook's side failed to win their series against Pakistan, rounding off the northern Test summer with a humiliating 10-wicket defeat at The Oval.

Quick Single: Pakistan triumph sees England series drawn

While Cook, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow have been consistently excellent, it is those around them who have failed miserably.

Indeed numbers two, four and five in the top six have been brutally exposed by a varied Pakistan attack that has deservedly helped their team to a share of the series.

England's tainted threesome has given them a helping hand, though.

Cook, Root and Bairstow averaged 60.42, 73.14 and 52.28 respectively across the four Tests.

Those numbers for Hales (18.12), Vince (22.57) and Ballance (27.85) were rather less impressive.

Such returns in a one-off series perhaps wouldn't be so bad but this is a problem that has existed for a while now.

After the series victory in South Africa last winter, England's Australian coach Trevor Bayliss implored county players to put their hands up and demand selection.

Test series against Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka were all won with a top six that was incapable of scoring consistently. Time and again England have been bailed out, most often by Root but at other times by Cook, Bairstow and, in this series, Moeen Ali.

"Consistently over the summer, we haven't scored enough runs at the top of the order," admitted Cook. "The lower order have got us out of trouble some of the time. It's great that we've got strength in depth down there. But the majority of the time they should be putting the icing on the cake, not making the cake.

"It is frustrating for us as a side. It's a big area we've got to keep working on – and obviously, for us to take that next step to consistency, top-order first-innings runs are vital."

Those were in short supply at The Oval as Hales (6), Vince (1) and Ballance (8) all fell cheaply. Moeen's hundred eventually managed to get his side up to 328.

Then, with immense scoreboard pressure borne of conceding a 214-run deficit, England's top order failed again in the second innings, the three men in question scoring 12, nought and 17 second time around.

Of the trio who have struggled so badly these past few weeks it is Vince who is under most pressure.

Having been given a home summer to make his start in Test cricket, the Hampshire man has failed badly.

After seven Tests his career average – 19.27 – is even worse than that in this series and that's some going given England's first series of the northern summer was against a Sri Lanka side who struggled in away conditions.

If Vince makes England's Test tours of Bangladesh and India later this year he'll have been lucky.

Quick Single: Boycott hits out at England batsmen

Hales is not exactly covering himself in glory either, averaging 27.28 after 11 Tests. He is Cook's eighth opening partner since the retirement of Andrew Strauss in 2012 and four years on England have still failed to replace the man who is now their director of cricket.

There are few options around in county cricket, although it is worth noting that Nick Browne, the highly-rated 25-year-old opener at Cook's county Essex, is averaging 58.60 in the Championship this summer with three hundreds and six fifties in 14 matches, including a best of 255.

Ballance is also living dangerously. The flaws in technique that saw him struggle so badly against Australia before he was dropped during last year's Ashes in England remain.

Like Vince, he may struggle for a spot on the subcontinental tours to come.

In truth England have not really evolved as a batting unit since the last Ashes series in Australia in 2013-14.

That whitewash proved a watershed for Kevin Pietersen, who was tossed aside for non-cricketing reasons and has not been adequately replaced.

Cook remains a consistent batsman capable of churning out runs in all conditions, while Root and Bairstow have both improved immeasurably.

But today's top six is no more reliable than its equivalent from that final Test in Sydney in January 2014 – a match for which Root was dropped – when England imploded for totals of 155 and 166 to lose inside three days.

In that landslide 281-run win for Australia, England's top six was as follows: Cook, Michael Carberry, Ian Bell, Pietersen, Ballance and Ben Stokes.

The top six who start the next Ashes series will likely include Cook, Root and Stokes, who is injured for this current series.

As for the rest? Your guess is as good as mine.