British, Aussie press savage Australia

"When is it acceptable to start gloating?"

That was the question posed by The UK Telegraph's Simon Briggs on Thursday in the wake of an astonishing opening day of the fourth Test at Trent Bridge.

Briggs's answer came readily enough as the UK press went into overdrive to heap praise on England's players and lambast Australia after they were dismissed for just 60 inside the first session in Nottingham.

Australia's press, too, were scathing in their assessment of their side; Peter Fitzsimmons from Fairfax and former Test spinner Stuart MacGill both called for captain Michael Clarke to step down, while News Ltd journlist Ben Horne simply stated that "heads will roll".

The most colourful report - unsurpringly - came from UK tabloid The Sun, with Steven Howard labelling the Australians "a national disgrace".

"Australia’s performance yesterday, though, was beyond a joke. Beyond parody,” Howard wrote.

"I know we should be taking the p*** and glorying in Australia’s plight — as they most surely would if it was us.

"But I actually feel sorry for them, probably the last thing any Australian wants to hear.

"Sympathy from a Pom. Things couldn’t have got that bad, surely.

"Well, they have. Yesterday was pathetic, a national disgrace."

Quick Single: Australian greats have their say

While paying tribute England's players, former captain Nasser Hussain focused on the techniques of Australia's batsmen, which were found wanting on the opening morning.

"Sometimes there is no substitute for carving out ugly runs, and the performance of Australia’s batsmen suggested that this is something of a dying art," Hussain wrote in The Daily Mail.

"Let us be clear: they faced a perfect storm from England of a bad toss to lose, cloud cover, a bit of grass on the wicket, brilliant bowling and some outstanding catching.

"But this was not a 60 all out wicket that was some sort of minefield.

"Australia have got to look at how they played and the reasons behind their techniques being so exposed in conditions that may not be second nature to them."

Journalist Gideon Haigh said the fragility of Australia's batsmen was as much between the ears as it was with their techniques.

"The game does not hinge on how diligently players have worked or how assiduously they have war-gamed; it is determined by their capacity to reproduce skills under pressure," Haigh wrote in The Times.

"And seldom can an Australia team have experienced such a collective skills seizure as on the first day at Trent Bridge."

One of Hussain's contemporaries, Michael Vaughan, agreed.

"The fight has gone," Vaughan wrote in The Telegraph.

"I saw defeatism from a few Australians after they lost the toss. It was “poor old us” time. They decided to fight by playing big shots rather than working through the tough period.

"The heart and soul of a batting unit is judged by the hours when it is tough and hard. You have to earn the right to face the old ball and cash in when the bowlers are tired or had the wind knocked out of them. But from what I saw Australia did not have the will to get through that sticky period in the first hour.

Watch: Re-live every Australian wicket on the first morning

"You could smell the fear. Once Australia lost two wickets in the first over you could sense it was going to be an awful morning for them.

"It is not just the scorebook that tells you a team is struggling. Batsmen looked like they were playing for themselves and bowlers were not bowling in partnerships in the way that Steven Finn and Mark Wood did for Stuart Broad."

While Vaughan was scathing of the tourists, he also heaped praise on a young England side that he said could well become one of the greatest in history and help rejuvenate English cricket.

"This is an England team of huge promise who have achieved success far quicker than I ever expected," Vaughan wrote.

"Now the challenge is to build a real legacy and go down as our greatest team. They are a young side with even the senior players having a few more years left in them so the chance is there to become a golden generation.

"In Joe Root, we are looking at a batsman who I think will go down as our greatest player if he continues in this manner.

Watch: Highlights of Root's stunning Ashes century

"The way he moves from position to position in the order, or effortlessly goes from Test to 50-over and Twenty20 cricket takes real skill.

"He is consistent in all formats, which is the mark of greatness in the modern era.

"(England) have brought real energy to the game and breathed life into cricket in England just when it needed it the most.

"People are talking about cricket again. And for all the right reasons."

Another former England captain, Michael Atherton, wrote of the dream-like nature of that opening session.

"For England’s cricketers it was a day to invoke Lou Reed: a perfect day, just a perfect day, Australia humiliated in front of a scarcely believing crowd and finishing dejected, dispirited and done," Atherton wrote in The Times.

"In years to come, many more will be bragging of their attendance than the 18,000 or so who witnessed the staggering events that ended in glorious sunshine with two young Yorkshire batsmen, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, running Australia’s bowlers ragged, and David Warner wheeling his arm over to give the toiling and wicketless Mitchell Johnson a rest.

"(Steve) Smith and (Michael) Clarke had the best seats in the house to appreciate the masterclass that Root eventually gave them in balancing the requirements of watertight defence with sparkling attack.

Watch: The story behind this stunning grab from Ben Stokes

"Root enjoyed himself immensely, as Broad had earlier. A perfect day."

Writing in The Daily Mail, Simon Barnes described the wave of joy that spread around the country with the fall of every Australian wicket.

"There are times when sport takes leave of its senses. Real life is suspended," Barnes wrote.

"We forget the humdrum routine of defeat and bad luck and plucky British losers and we are transported to the island where dreams come true, where everything a partisan spectator could desire takes place as if such things were meant to be."

"From the first over of the Aussie innings, the story of what was unfolding began to spread," Barnes continued.

"It was like throwing a large stone into a gentle English mill pond: the impossible news created concentric circles of excitement that reached wider and wider as wickets fell.

"This was becoming an event.

"People started gathering around office televisions. Others texted the news — because this kind of excitement is always better shared, isn't it? 'Dad, are you watching? Put the Test match on, quick.'

"And as a fifth wicket, and a sixth and seventh fell, so football fans and even those who don't know a googly from an off-break got sucked in and started whooping their encouragement, too. By now, there was a great unofficial wave of excitement blasting its way across England.

"On buses and trains, in pubs and bars, strangers shook hands and patted backs — drinks were ordered, toasts made. A nation united in happiness."

Watch: Highlights from horror openiing day at Trent Bridge

Briggs had his answer; the time for gloating - that most un-English of pasttimes - is now. And didn't he enjoy it.

"Surely, though, this is the moment when we can abandon our Anglo-Saxon reserve and enjoy a little Aussiefreude," Briggs wrote.

"It has long been a national habit to mourn when England lose and scoff when they win, on the basis that the opposition cannot be up to much.

"(Gloating) is an unattractive habit. And yet, there is something about Clarke’s Australians that makes it hard to resist.

"They came here with the sort of laconic, drawling insouciance that you used to associate with the furry-lipped juggernauts of the Steve Waugh era.

"Steve Smith’s pre-series comment that “I don’t think they’ll come close to us, to be honest” stemmed from the same school of cartoonish provocation as Glenn McGrath’s automatic predictions of 5-0 before each series.

"McGrath could get away with his needling, even when things went wrong for the tourists in 2005, because he was arguably the greatest fast bowler in the history of Ashes cricket. He had earned the right to a little grandstanding.

"But while Smith might have been the world’s most prolific batsman over the last year, he still comes across like a fresh-faced prefect, trying to assume an air of authority before his time."

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