Ashes to dashes!

One of the charms of Test cricket is that a match scheduled to last five days allows for the possibility of a fight-back, even if a team falls behind early on.

It was a charm, however, completely lacking from the 2015 Ashes, which ended with England winning the five-match series 3-2 despite Australia's innings and 46-run win in the concluding Test at The Oval on Sunday.

This Ashes equalled in length the shortest five-Test series of modern times of 18 days that took place when England played the West Indies in 2000.

The fifth day wasn't needed in any of the matches, with the nearest thing to a 'close' contest being England's 169-run win in the series opener in Cardiff.

Prior to the series both sides spoke about their intention to play aggressive cricket.

It became such an ingrained mantra that it was almost as if the thought of playing out a maiden filled some batsmen with a sense of dread.

Australia rectified their approach at The Oval, where their opening boundary did not arrive until the 15th over of the match and they still piled up 481, but by then it was too late to save the Ashes.

While the English climate produces surfaces that are generally more conducive to swing and seam bowling than many places elsewhere in the world, there was a feeling following Australia's 405-run win in the second Test on a docile pitch at Lord's of groundsmen being instructed to prepare wickets that aided horizontal movement.

The irony was that it needed an Australian, in new England coach Trevor Bayliss, to point this out.