Joe Root has acknowledged that England's batting must improve significantly if they want to enjoy any success in the future.
On Sunday, England lost 10 wickets for 56 runs in less than 23 overs, an astonishing capitulation that gifted Australia a 146-run win in the fifth Ashes Test.
The manner of the defeat was similar to those earlier in the series, and Root has admitted that now is the time for talks with the ECB over which direction England will head in the short and long term.
Speaking to BT Sport, Root said: "You can try and dissect the whole game. There was a period where we were poor with ball in hand, we gave them a lot of momentum and we couldn't contain them. With bat in hand we didn't take advantage of starts we had individually. Today was really disappointing, there were a lot of soft dismissals.
"We haven't scored the runs to give our bowlers opportunities. We clearly needed to be better. You can't win test matches if you're not getting 200 runs in either innings."
"There are long term things that have to change but in the short term guys have got to learn quickly to manage different periods of play in the harshest of environments. I do sympathise with them but I think there aren't opportunities to do that at the level before."
"We need to sit down and decide what direction English cricket needs to take, and what direction English Test cricket needs to take to improve and improve quickly."
Root added that he is no rush to make any decision regarding his position as captain after overseeing a one-sided 4-0 defeat in the series.
Darren Plant
