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Another match, another night-time jolly for England’s irrepressible dashers. Only a mini-hiccup with the target in sight threatened for a moment to stymy England’s run-chase, before Chris Woakes joined the revitalised Joe Root to see the tourists home with 34 balls remaining. A first ODI win for England at Brisbane since 1999, and a shellacking, a host-humbling, for the second time in a week.

No amount of pyjama-partying will fully erase the haunting miseries of the last two months, but how heartening to see Root – and those other gaunt lifers on this tour of tours – smiling and enjoying their cricket again. Root was Man of the Match here, but not so much for the steady-heartbeat inevitability of his role in the run-chase, as for his golden-arm knack with the ball.

Australia, suddenly, appear cluttered in their thinking with the bat and toothless with the ball. For all the promise shown by the slippery-quick Jhye Richardson, who impressed with two wickets on debut, they sorely lacked the cutting thrust of Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins. Unless both return to help out Mitchell Starc in those opening 15 overs, Australia will be staring down the barrel of an emphatic series defeat. In truth, they may well be regardless.

It’s all a far cry from those days in the Nineties when England’s one-day outfit would be ritually beaten by Australia’s reserves. That used to be the way of things for a cricketing culture that was not just clueless about one-day cricket, but broadly indifferent too. The Test team may be in something approaching a crisis, with 17 Test defeats in the Trevor Bayliss era; but in the shorter stuff – where, it should be noted, Bayliss established his reputation – they are implausibly and thrillingly leading the way.

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