Clearly not the former... Seems like we've been talking about the death of Test cricket since at least the 1980s. Ain't happened yet.
Is the Test team really struggling? We lost heavily to India in India, but that's hardly unusual. I think I'm right in saying that prior to this summer, losing to an extremely strong New Zealand team, the last home Test series we lost was a very tight two-gamer against Sri Lanka in 2014. That's pretty remarkable.
Looking at the team it feels like we've got a really solid seam bowling unit - even with all of Archer, Broad, Wood and Woakes injured, and Stokes missing - how would the Aussies get on if Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood were out? It's easy to make arguments about who should be picked at wicket keeper but while I guess most of us here would prefer to see a genuine specialist like Foakes, it wouldn't be an unarguably idiotic decision to play Buttler there if he was in some kind of batting form.
Batting is definitely a bit frail at the moment but if Hameed can cement the opening position, Stokes returns, and Pope recovers from injury and starts to fulfil his undoubted promise then all of a sudden that could start looking a bit rosier.
All in all yeah, we're certainly not world-beaters right now but no team should ever be the unchallenged best. Words like "demise" I just don't understand at all.