Nine in the morning, and Oval station is heaving. People are spilling out of trains and pressing along the narrow platforms, shuffling up and out towards the street. The announcer takes a break from repeating his plea for everyone to “please be patient on the escalators”, and mutters “four more days of this” underneath his breath. “Five” a passerby tells him with a smile, “if we lose a day for rain”. The platform man rolls his eyes. But they’re a happy crowd, bound by anticipation, and buoyed by the knowledge that the forecast is good, and there is a full day ahead.
“I remember when they first introduced the Test championship we weren’t really sure what relevance it would have,” Mitchell Starc said in the days before this game started. Almost everyone in the sport felt that way.
