Poor old England. You almost nearly feel sorry for them this Monday morning after rain robbed their men's cricket team of victory in the fourth Test at Old Trafford overnight, thereby keeping The Ashes in Australia's hands.

England dominated the fourth Test, but as we predicted here at Weatherzone early last week, the rain dominated more.

Take a look at the two maps below. They show the rainfall observations at 11 am at the scheduled start of play on Sunday, and at 7 pm at the scheduled finish.

Images: Manchester juuust stayed in the rainy zone all day long. Source: UK Met Office.

If the rainband had been situated 50 kilometres further north, and maybe less, England would doubtless have won the match and the series would be square with everything to play for in the fourth Test at The Oval in London, starting this Thursday.

Instead, the series is 2-1 Australia's way, which means that even if England wins at The Oval and levels the series 2-2, Australia will retain the Ashes urn it currently holds.

Naturally, there was dismay in England. Champion England batter and former captain Joe Root made good points about extending playing hours on non-rainy days when, after all, it doesn't get dark till 10 pm in northern England in July.

Others were somewhat more less constructive in their comments. Having watched his beloved team out-bat and out-bowl Australia, TV host and England moaner-in-chief Piers Morgan decided to out-whine pretty much everyone.

FFS. Has there ever been a less-deserved retention of the Ashes? From the Bairstow debacle to this rain-soaked fiasco, it’s an absolute farce that smirking Australia have ended up with the urn still in their hands. England comfortably the better side as this Test showed. Gutting. pic.twitter.com/efjLtw0nnl

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) July 23, 2023

Doubtless Piers hoped that no one would remember the time 10 years ago when he celebrated a rain interruption that saved England at The Oval in London. Oops.

Anyway, what's done is done. The main take-out from a memorable few days of cricket and weather is that weather is the most important thing in the world, but then as Weatherzone reader, you already knew that.