Perhaps fittingly for a series sponsored by a popular brand of antiseptic, Australia’s second T20 against England proceeded as if everything about the first had been wiped clean.
Where runs had come in floods here they trickled, where openers had thrived here they toiled, but once again England batted first, won by eight runs, and if nothing else they will return from Australia bearing the Dettol Trophy, a scarily spiky piece of silverware that must on no account be sat on.
Few could have savoured, or indeed embodied the contrasts between the games as much as Dawid Malan, who from his nominal position of three slid so far down England’s order in the first game in Perth that he ended up facing only two balls, but here came in as scheduled and gathered the game like a miscreant schoolboy by the scruff of the neck.
His innings of 82 off 49 proved decisive. This win, against an Australia side at full strength with Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood and Glenn Maxwell all restored to the team after not travelling to Perth, will have been both sweeter and more encouraging for the tourists.