It took until gone 5.30 for a moment to arrive to finally lift the English gloom. It had been a wet and wild start to the Test summer, rain and wickets tumbling to dull what was meant to be a bright new start to banish the Ashes woes. Bowled out for 140 inside 40 overs, the pessimistic chuntering around the hosts had long since begun by the time their last pair disappeared to the dressing room. Fresh English approach; same old story.
But on a pitch offering lavish movement, and in conditions to which he was ideally suited, in the space of six balls, Ollie Robinson provided a reminder of just why England have recalled him. For more than two years, Robinson had sat and wondered – wondered what might have been, wondered, perhaps, what he had done wrong. His qualities had never been in doubt; his application, fitness and attitude perhaps so. But with a winter of error and Australian top-order terror leaving a vacancy for someone of precisely his skillset, Robinson showed the high-class new-ball bowler he remains, to strike thrice in his first over and tilt a Test unlikely to go close to the distance and spare a few blushes.
