England relied on vibes and sprites when Cummins went a little Bazball

Everyone talks about big first hours. That’s because first hours need all the hype they can get. Nobody needs to sell the last hour of a Test match. And particularly not a Test on this epic, colossal, orchestral scale, a Test that shook you from its very first ball and never stopped shaking.

Take the devastating tension of a tight Twenty20, the ebb and grapple of a really good one-day international, and then make it big. Stretch it out over almost a week. Throw in some random weather phenomena, enough booze to fill the Caspian, batters forced to bowl and bowlers forced to bat. Cricket: good. Worth your time. Might just catch on.

That was the only firm conclusion we could draw from these five tempestuous, hysterical days in Birmingham. For the victorious, exhausted Australia there will be a temptation to see this as vindication: almost a moral as well as a sporting triumph, proof of the time-honoured virtues of ticker, patience, trust in the process. But that would be to ignore the fact they only turned this game round when Pat Cummins threw caution to the wind and hurled the bat at everything that moved. When they went – to coin a phrase – a little bit Bazball.

As for the demoralised, exhausted England: well, whatever you think about them is by definition wrong. Remember, Bazball is largely indifferent to your staid, hidebound trivialities like victory and defeat. It is no more possible to defeat Bazball than it is to defeat carbon, or the notion of love, or the number five. So what if they looked bereft of ideas in the field and kept throwing their wickets away when well set? Something something pitch. Something something the little kid within. Something something Test cricket is the winner here.

The bitter irony here