Without Smith's scores, the crims got an average of 25 in the first Edgbaston innings and 35 in the second, which doesn't include the last two bowlers to bring down the average but does include the partnerships around Smith. And the second innings was during the period of the flattest area of the earth since time began.
England had a first innings average of 27 and the collapse on the final day was after the pitch had been roughed up like a ball in an Aussie sandpaper factory. Any team is capable of a collapse, as they proved on the first day at 122-8. The lesson there is and has always been never judge a match by a first innings.
We may be overly reliant on middle order all-rounders but it's hardly a classic Aussie side and is beatable, particularly if we can find a way to nullify Smith and the determination to "prove the bastards wrong" embodied in Bairstow but running through the England team persists. If not then yes, we are probably facing a short term future of rain dances and prayer.
Meanwhile, nostalgia:
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As the Guardian noted, "Ian Botham’s outlandish match-saving performance in the third Test brought victory and fresh hope after the gloom of the preceding defeat, disharmony and widespread rioting."
And then came Edbaston. Said Botham: “I had bowled well – fast and straight – but on that wicket it should not have been enough to make the Aussies crumble that way. The only explanation I could find was that they had bottled out. The psychological edge that we – and I – had got over them at Headingley was proving an insuperable barrier for them.”
The Guardian again: "From the brink of defeat England had once more snatched victory and Botham and Brearley had conjured a sequel up there with The Godfather: Part II."
I may be an eternal optimist but that's growing up in Scotland for you.