Brad Haddin felt sick. Sitting in the visitors' dressing room at The Oval on Sunday, the Australian wicketkeeper watched in despair as his team crumbled on the fourth day of the fifth Ashes Test.
He wasn't alone. His teammates, just as heartbroken, also sat, scattered around the room, in an eerie silence.
There was no back slapping, no words of reassurance. It was a moment the Australians were hoping they weren't going to endure.
But as the English bowlers tore through the Australian tail that afternoon, reality began to sink in that the Ashes urn was heading back to the Old Dart.
When spinner Graeme Swann had Mike Hussey caught at short leg to end our reign as Ashes holders, Haddin knew what came next.
He knew he and his teammates had to walk on to the field as Ashes losers, look their English opponents in the eye and congratulate them.
Furthermore, he knew this was only the beginning of the pain.
''It was dead quiet in the rooms, the guys were just sitting there, probably pondering their own individual performances and the fact that we had just lost the Ashes, the greatest prize in cricket in my opinion,'' Haddin told The Canberra Times yesterday.
''For me personally, while I at no stage thought I was going to vomit, I felt sick. There were 16 guys in the room all hurting deeply, knowing the Ashes were gone.
''For the 15 or so minutes after Huss got out, we had to accept that we were outplayed and that you need to be man enough to go and shake the England players' hands and say 'well played'.
''That's not an easy thing to do. After the presentation on the field, and watching them celebrate their win, we went back into the room and there was still a pretty hollow feeling.
''We just sat there and took it all in.''
While the majority of the Test team remained in England after the Ashes loss for a one-day series and Twenty20 series, Haddin joined Stuart Clark and Simon Katich in heading back to Australia.
As expected, the trio arrived to a gluttony of media wanting answers.
Should Ricky Ponting be sacked as captain? Should Nathan Hauritz have been selected to play in the final Test? Are our bowlers good enough?
The unofficial reviews of what went wrong had begun.
Haddin accepts passionate fans will have their opinions on what should or shouldn't have happened throughout the series.
But he is eager to point one thing out he believes Australia did enough to win the Ashes.
Statistically, he's right. The Aussies had three of the four leading wicket-takers in the series and six of the top seven leading run-scorers.
''There's always going to be reviews after a series like that, whether we win or lose, but the important thing is to take the emotion out of everything and move on,'' Haddin said.
''The stats show we're not far away from being a very good cricket team, we've just got to recognise the big moments in games and make sure we're ready to pounce on them.
''The bottom line is we lost the series in two sessions, one at Lord's and one at The Oval, and maybe even the last session at Cardiff when we couldn't get the last wicket.
''We simply didn't win the big moments like we did the series before in South Africa and as a result, we came home empty handed.''
Despite the fact he's likely to miss at least the next month recovering from surgery to a fractured finger, Haddin's position in both the Test and one-day teams appears safe.
The same can't be said for all his teammates, whose Ashes loss was the side's third series defeat from its past five.
Most of the post-Ashes heat has been directed on captain Ricky Ponting and whether he should continue to lead the team into the looming Australian summer, or if the time has come for his deputy Michael Clarke to assume the leadership mantle.
In Haddin's eyes, there's only one man for the job.
''I know there's been a lot of criticism of Ricky Ponting and Ricky Ponting's captaincy but he did an outstanding job in England,'' he said.
''He's a tremendous leader and a great guy to take this team forward.
''That's what we're all about now, moving forward. We have to take the bad with the good regarding what's happened, process it, learn from it and become better cricketers individually and as a team as a result.''
For Haddin, the moving forward process will be delayed as he recovers from his finger surgery.
The pain he suffered from the fractured bone paled into insignificance against the mental anguish he endured in losing the Ashes.
Haddin will never forget the pain or mood inside the Australian dressing sheds at The Oval earlier this week.
He's just hoping it's something he never has to go through again.
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