Lunchtime at the Oval, and Australia are six wickets down with a lead of 373. Alex Carey’s at one end, 41 not out off 61 balls, Mitchell Starc’s at the other, 11 off 19. It’s already over a hundred runs more than anyone’s ever scored in the fourth innings to win a Test here, and that particular match was way back in the 1902 Ashes, when Gilbert Jessop blazed his 76-ball hundred. The pressing question then, the one everyone was chewing over in the food and drink queues, was: “What’s next?” A burst of attacking cricket, a tumble of tail-end wickets?
What we got, instead, was one of those soporific hours when play slows down to an amble. Starc threw the odd shot, a clip through midwicket for four, a punch down the ground for another, Carey tinkered around in singles. The crowd quietened down, the sun drifted overhead, aeroplanes came and went. Tick. A single off one over. Tock. A single off the next. Tick. Another single from the one after. Tock. In 10 overs, Australia scored all of 31 runs. The second hand wavered, even seemed to be moving backwards.
