With a premature Champions trophy exit, England’s national habit of failing to win a major sporting tournament continues. Set up by a media complicit in placing the weight of a nation on our athletes’ shoulders, at least when the fall does come, it makes for compelling reading.

When England’s male cricketers last got knocked out at the group stage of a global tournament, Australia had the courtesy to go on and win the thing. Two years on from their humiliation at the hands of a burgeoning Bangladesh side, the tables appeared to have turned; England were favourites and well set going into the knockout stages of this year’s Champions Trophy.