Mitchell Starc’s bat-and-ball double whammy at dusk propels Australia into the light

If you really squinted – perhaps with the aid of a 36-hour plane trip or a handful of 1970s anxiety medication – there was a time when you might have claimed that England had pulled off a tactical masterstroke. When the looming threat of the day was Mitchell Starc bowling in the gloaming at around 6pm Brisbane time, perhaps the smart play was to let him bat in the hot sun for four hours first, tuckering him out so your openers could smash him.

It may have been a calculation that Starc also considered when wondering whether to throw the bat or to keep on grinding out runs. In the end, he valued more the fact that each of them added to Australia’s lead. The team’s principal bowling weapon burnished his series contribution by offering 77 runs from 141 balls, which was 22 runs below his highe