World champions prove their mettle as England's voyage of discovery blows off course

Well, that's one way of coming back down to earth. Flawless at Lord's, floored in Bristol.

Just two days after England put together a near-perfect performance with bat and ball to bring them back into the contest, Australia flexed their muscle and nous to take it, eventually, with ease.

What experience they used to crush a brilliant start in the first innings was channelled to launch a series-clinching one of their own in the second. If the rain saved anyone this time around, it was England. Australia were breezing this long before the winds picked up to give this summer an appropriately wet finish.

There's a reason Australia are world champions in this format. Adjustments were made on the fly and executed precisely after Phil Salt, then Ben Duckett and Harry Brook had blitzed their way to 202 for 2 with a ball to go in the 25th over.

England picked up where they left off from Lord's against Adam Zampa, targeting the legspinner - his first two overs went for 30 - with Brook nailing him for sixes at will. Nevertheless, pace off was clearly the way to go to starve England's swing-happy batters of scoring opportunities. Aaron Hardie bowled the 21st over, Mitchell Starc the 45th - and everything in between was made up primarily of wily offies. Hazlewood and Starc ended up bowling just 12 overs between them. Not since Princes William and Harry played Stormtroopers in Star Wars: The Last Jedi has such royalty disappeared into the background.

Travis Head's removal of Duckett, who had assumed the responsibility of giving the innings a late kick, was not just the first of four wickets to the part-timer but also began a boundary drought that lasted 52 deliveries. All in all, "spinners" - and with all due respect, that definition does require inverted commas - sent down 194 deliveries, a new Australian record in ODIs. Some going on an overcast day at the end of September.

Did England get ahead of themselves? Well, yes. Both Brook and Duckett fell attempting to land multiple blows - the former after striking Zampa for back-to-back sixes at the start of the over, the latter right after sending Head over the fence down the ground. No surprise that the two grooved on "Test Cricket According to Baz" decided to mark one attacking stroke with another.

Gone are the days of knocking a single after a boundary. But Brook had half the innings to go, and Duckett was the only adult left for the hosts. Not to mention the two are England's best players of spin, and the form batters, finishing as their team's top scorers in the series.

Responsibility was not shirked, per se, but it certainly wasn't seized when the game was there to be taken well out of Australia's reach. Brendon McCullum has promised to bring the joy back to England's white-ball teams - and this has been a promising month on that front - but much as has been the case with his Test team, there will no doubt be conversations about adopting a more cut-throat attitude.

"We've been bowled out again today as we didn't adapt to the pitch quickly enough," answered interim head coach Marcus Trescothick when asked about areas of improvement. It was in keeping with the opening two defeats; England were dismissed for 315 at Trent Bridge - having been well set on 213 for 2 - and 202 in Leeds, flunking a chase of 270.

"If we look at all the games we've lost in the series, there were periods in all those games where we could have made an impact and won the game, and the story of the series could've been very different. I just mentioned to the boys in the dressing room about keeping the pressure on, like we've done in this game and across the whole series. We should be maintaining it and be smarter for longer... we can elongate that while playing over 50 overs."

This collapse of 8 for 107 in 24.3 overs was felt harshly by a bowling attack still finding its feet. They had had things their way in helpful seam conditions under lights in the fourth ODI, squaring the series by dismantling Australia for 126. But they were left exposed when Bristol's shorter dimensions were flipped against them.

Head and Matt Short were always going to race out of the blocks. But their powerplay carrot was thicker and juicier with England only just crawling beyond the 300 mark, having had 450 in their sights. The impending storm, wending its way up the Bristol Channel all through the afternoon, brought extra urgency.

Olly Stone and Matthew Potts found themselves in the crosshairs of an opening stand of 78 from seven overs. Steve Smith and Josh Inglis then cracked on to ensure Australia were 45 ahead of the DLS par at the magic 20-over mark. England had tried to keep that figure at bay, with sub-fielder John Turner coming on at regular intervals to eat up whatever seconds he could. Brook said he was still trying to take wickets, hence Adil Rashid was used even though his two overs would have taken longer had they been bowled by a seamer.

A touch of naivety from the stand-in skipper? Ultimately, Australia were just sharper. And perhaps most humbling was they bettered the best of what England produced in this finale. The 11 sixes they struck in the first 25 overs was England's most since 2006. Australia had nine by the 20th over.

Even their achievement in coming back from 2-0 down was ultimately trumped by a group of tourists who had been blighted by illness throughout the series and were desperate to get home, but still managed to turn on the style one last time in bleak conditions. "I'd be lying if I say I wouldn't prefer it to be in July - with a bit of heat," Mitchell Marsh, their captain, said, and he even had the benefit of wrapping up warm, away from the elements, as Smith took on the captaincy duties in Bristol.

These are two teams at different ends of the spectrum on their journey. The theme of Australia's tour, according to Marsh, was "flexibility", as evidenced by the way they used their spinners on the field here, including 50-over debutant Cooper Connolly, as well as the fact Head has had two different opening partners in the last three days.

Brook, meanwhile, spoke of the importance of players becoming au fait with the "tempo" of ODI cricket, particularly for a batting group reared on T20. After an impressive series as stand-in skipper, he used his last media appearance in the role - for now - to put these last five matches into context.

"They're the best team in the world," Brook said of their vaunted opponents. "We're playing against some of the best bowlers to ever play the game, and some of the best batters to have ever played the game as well. The fight and desire we've shown to bring that [series] back has been amazing."

The next stage for this team is unknown. The next white-ball series in the Caribbean is sandwiched between the Test tours of Pakistan and New Zealand. As such, Brook, Duckett, Jamie Smith, Potts, Olly Stone and Brydon Carse - who leave for that first three-match series on Tuesday - are unlikely to feature despite occupying key roles this month.

Factor in Jos Buttler slotting back in as captain after Brook's impressive showing, and there is either a hint of awkwardness, or a solution, on the horizon. Similarly, the mooted returns of Joe Root and Ben Stokes ahead of February's Champions Trophy bring bigger selection matters to decipher.

And that is arguably where England wanted to be as night fell on the final day of the 2024 English summer. This month against Australia has not been about immediately righting wrongs, or knocking the world champions off their perch.

It was all about discovery after a limited-overs summer that began, in June, with a T20 World Cup that showed England's most successful limited-overs generation had reached the end of the line. The first batch of the next generation are here and have taken their first steps on a different path, but one they hope leads back to where English white-ball cricket once was.