The ball may be pink and the meal breaks off-kilter, but for so much of the second day in this pivotal day-night Test match, the atmosphere inside the Gabba was an all-too-familiar one for England’s supporters.
Gone was the triumphalism that met Joe Root’s first Test century on these shores 24 hours earlier and in its place a creeping sense of dread. The bottom line is: England’s bowlers spent most of the day sending down so many long hops and half-volleys as to make Jackson Pollock look positively precise.
