Root and Brook play for England before the storm halts Ash’s charge against Australia

As rain fell on the Sydney Cricket Ground, dividing the opening day of this fifth Ashes Test into exactly half the allotted overs, you could practically hear the champagne corks being popped in the Cricket Australia offices. Maybe also the groundsman’s hut.

The huge losses the two-day event suffered in Perth and Melbourne put CA and the SCG on red alert regarding a repeat. Unless something absurd happens on the second day – England had reached 211 for three when play was abandoned at 5pm on the first day – this series finale should last a lot longer.

Another reason for administrative optimism was the ease with which Joe Root and Harry Brook built an unbeaten fourth-wicket stand of 154 runs. The top score fell to 57 for three – nothing new – but then an Australian spinless attack in Sydney began to look like ideas for the first time since the days of Queen Victoria.

Perhaps this should have been expected. Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon were absent for the hosts, while Root and Brook are number one and two respectively in the Test batting rankings. First using a surface that offered much less movement than its predecessor, there was every reason to expect the runs to flow.

But on a tour that saw England batsmen confused and questioned about their methods more broadly, nothing could be taken for granted. Root’s fresh 72, and a more restless 78 from Brook, gained a foothold in the match, even if the poor light and showers that hit from 3pm onwards failed to make it decisive.

The 45 overs observed were a fair amount for the newest audience in this series. People hoping for a better balance between bat and ball got just that. Australia struck three times in the opening 90 minutes before Root and Brook began working the ball through gaps and forced plans to change.

Australia called an unusual attack, with stand-in captain Steve Smith claiming confidence in the brains had been “pushed into a corner” due to the lack of a spinner. In any case, it looked like a fudge: a clear desire to keep the failed Cameron Green, but also give Beau Webster a late chance. The result was two all-rounders in the XI and thus a diet of right-arm fast-medium past Mitchell Starc.

After the SCG paid a stirring pre-game tribute to the victims of the Bondi terror attacks and first responders, and Ben Stokes won the toss, Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett started brightly enough. Starc found a swing early, but Duckett in particular was soon cutting and hitting boundaries to signal a personal corner was being turned.

It was just the latest in a series of cameos, but Duckett pushed off his body again on 27 to hand Starc his 27th wicket of the series. When Crawley fell to Neser on 16 lbw while playing around one, and did the same on the next ball after finding the rope, England had fallen to 51 for two in the 12th over.

Jacob Bethell did his usual thing in the first innings, which was to look really good and yet fail badly with just 10 to his name. At least this was clever work from Scott Boland, with the metronome switching to over the wicket and sliding a long ball past the left-hander for a flicker of wood and a second catch for Alex Carey.

What followed from 57 for three was a confrontation between the two Yorkshiremen. Root enjoyed the relatively slow pitch, drilling cover drives, pinching singles and guiding balls past the backward point. But Brook wasn’t nearly as fluent, and Boland in particular saw two inside edges fly close to the stumps.

But by the start of lockdown the pair had reached the highest score of the English tour – just their third over three figures – and Brook had his personal best score of the series. Green was his target as 114 for three at lunch, followed by another 97 runs without further loss in the afternoon. The Australian all-rounder’s eight overs featured missed lengths and were taken for 57.

The shot of the day was probably Brook Green pulling over a deep back square for a six from 97 yards, even if a couple of effortless drives from Root would require a word. More generally, a run rate of 4.68 was more familiar to England supporters.

On one level, this has only increased their frustration with the team’s performance in the first three Tests; inviting more questions about why a setup that claims to be designed to help players deal with pressure has only given them results once that pressure has been released.

Still, it certainly felt closer to Test cricket than the Melbourne casino and the bean counters at CA could breathe easier.