Take a bow, ECB administrators, after the debacle in Dhaka resulted in England’s first Test defeat by Bangladesh. Not the current crop of administrators who have begun to reverse the damage, but the previous generation who presided over the extinction of the spin culture in English professional cricket.

It was not just England’s poor batting against spin which led to this historic defeat. It was the low standard of England’s spinners, who took 12 Bangladesh wickets for 325 runs, whereas Bangladesh’s spinners took 20 wickets for 366; and of England’s fielding in support of spin, as Zafar Ansari would attest after seeing four catches missed; and even of their wicketkeeping, for although Jonny Bairstow has improved to the point where he has no close rival, he was safer standing back than up in Bangladesh.

Graham Thorpe, England’s one-day batting coach, told me the best preparation he had against pace before playing Test cricket came from playing in four-day “A” Tests against West Indies, who had serious pace even in their second XI in the early 1990s; while the best preparation he had against spin came when batting against Essex, who had two high-class spinners, at the former out-ground of Southend.