Muddled, embarrassed Australia were warned about a day like this

Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins during day two of the 4th Test in Manchester.

As Australia’s cricketers contemplated the Ashes this summer, those who had been watching England’s year of barnstorming spoke of a need to be prepared. There would be phases in the series where the home team burst the bonds of accurate bowling and defensive field formations, and appear to charge off with the game. In these circumstances, the team would simply have to keep their heads, stick to their core skills, and wait for the gradual restoration of equilibrium between bat and ball.

Came that afternoon yesterday. But as England piled 178 in twenty-five overs between lunch and tea, it felt less like Australia was chasing the game than being dragged behind a chariot with knives on its wheels.

Viz the last ball of the thirty-eighth over. Mitchell Marsh had done well to restrict scoring to seven singles in his first eleven balls; he rolled fingers cannily over his twelfth. More time, it turned out, for Joe Root to squat for his speciality reverse lap, where he looks like a farmer shovelling hay over his shoulder. As the ball descended the far side of the rope, Pat Cummins at mid-on was as much a spectator as everyone else.

Ben Stokes of England in action during day two.

Edgbaston had been a harbinger, but Australia there at least had had Nathan Lyon as a mildly tethering influence. Now, there was no Lyon, and either too little method or too much. Bowlers were too straight then too wide, bowled to one side of the wicket then the other, struggled with their lengths, muddled their variations, neglected the front line (eleven no balls in 72 overs).

Fields were constructed, reconstructed, deconstructed, destructed, their average life maybe three to four overs. There were twin deep gullies, multiple fly slips, and even multiple captains, with Steve Smith at slip semaphoring busily; later he gave away three overthrows.

Faced with a similar predicament, Victoria’s government would simply have withdrawn from the Test; Australia had no such recourse.

In partnership with first Moeen Ali then Joe Root, Zak Crawley was a revelation, perhaps even to himself, although this was the innings that England had gone on thinking he was born to play, including a century in a session in which the big shots made the space for the little shots to count. It was a Bazball without the manic edge glimpsed at Lord’s, and both purposeful and judicious.

England's Zak Crawley reacts as he walks back to the pavilion after losing his wicket for 189 runs on day two of the fourth Ashes cricket Test match between England and Australia at Old Trafford.

For all his lust for the booming drive, the shot of Crawley’s that has really caught the eye this summer is the stroke, taken waist high just in front of square leg to wrong foot the field and/or turn the strike over. At one stage, Cummins posted two mid-wickets, which Crawley first bisected then went finer than with a shimmy to the off side. End of experiment, start of another.

Batters assuredly rode their luck: few have reviewed an lbw more profitably than Crawley (20) before lunch.

First ball after lunch, Moeen punctured cover with a priceless drive, then hit over the top of a grisly slice; Crawley drove headlong just wide of gully off Green, then eased the next ball laconically down the ground.

Crawley greeted Travis Head with sweeps, oriental and occidental, and Moeen disposed of a full toss, then miscued a half-tracker that eluded an unsighted Cummins at mid-off. In the next over but one, Cummins mistimed his dive and spilled Moeen at mid-wicket.

David Warner (C) shakes the hand of England's Zak Crawley (R) after he loses his wicket for 189 runs.

It cost Australia only the skin on the captain’s elbows, as Moeen fell soon after, although England’s ersatz number three may never have made an Ashes contribution so crucial. The milestone of his 3000th Test run reminded one that had his career coincided with Graeme Swann’s, or there been another specialist slow bowler capable of shouldering the bulk of the overs, Moeen might have been a top order batter to be reckoned with.

Root made the most of the protective detail that Moeen had provided, and Cummins having just completed a spell spared him premature exposure to his nemesis. When Cummins did return, Root stood back and tall to handle the inevitable short stuff, while the scattered field could not stop Crawley driving and slashing Mitchell Starc through the 90s.

The partnership would be worth 206 in 186 balls: bodies have been wrapped in blankets and dumped in the Thames more tenderly than Crawley and Root treated one of Australia’s most accomplished Test pace attacks.

Australia captain Pat Cummins leaves the field at stumps on day two.

And, of course, there was little else, with no specialist spinner to take off the pace that Crawley so enjoys. As he drove Cummins down the ground either side of the stumps after tea, Crawley looked like a batter disposing of throw downs; as he wellied Marsh into the crowd, he resembled a golfer teeing off.

Having made their statement, England had no need to repeat. In the last session they added 145 in 31 overs - progress almost leisurely by comparison. The Australian top six, five of whom exceeded 30 but none of whom exceeded 51, looked on. Cummins, in his fifth Test of summer, looked exhausted; Starc, who fielded manfully all day, went off feeling a shoulder. Behind Carey as Labuschagne bowled the final over, in the spot usually reserved to the surplus helmet, reposed an unused protector, like a fig leaf for Australian embarrassment.