So, how good was that? At 4.10pm yesterday afternoon, more than four-and-a-half days into this classic Ashes opening salvo, England needed five wickets for victory, Australia 114 runs and the bookmakers simply could not split them.
It was the natural point of convergence for a game that, from Zak Crawley’s boundary off the first ball to Pat Cummins’s off the last, answered to no true master, a swing-voter of a contest that well into its thrilling finale was still coming down on the side of abstain.
