Yesterday evening, in light that hovered on the fringes of playability, Shane Warne, ripping the ball like a buzzsaw, began to put the lid on the match and the series. He did not take a wicket - that privilege rested with Michael Kasprowicz and, on a rare outing with the ball, Mark Waugh - but with three days of the match remaining, he did not need to. As with the man who fell out of a tower block, passed the second floor and thought "so far so good" it is, in reality, only a matter of time.
On a pitch wearing faster than a set of cardboard brake linings, England will resume this morning at 52 for the loss of Mike Atherton, Alec Stewart, and, to a leg before decision from Lloyd Barker that bordered on the scandalous, Mark Butcher, and are deep in trouble, having conceded a slight, but in the context of a low-scoring match, significant first innings lead of 38.
Much now will depend on the fortunes of Nasser Hussain, who had defended desperately for one hour for his two runs and Graham Thorpe, 22, who began the series with that brilliant fourth wicket alliance of 288 and so far have added 28 for the same wicket here.
It served to put a dampener on the wave of enthusiasm that had washed over the ground a couple of hours earlier as Phil Tufnell, a spinner with a fast bowler's mentality, and Andy Caddick, bowling in tandem with a passion and consistency that all too frequently has been lacking in the attack this summer, produced the most impressive England bowling since the first morning of the first Test.
As the clock clicked round to half past four, Tufnell galloped up the pavilion steps to a standing ovation, having taken seven for 64 in a spell of 34.3 overs interrupted only by a kip overnight, lunch and tea. He immediately announced that he was off for a fag and a cup of tea.
Behind him, Caddick marched off, three wickets his reward where twice that number might not have gone amiss. It was his finest bowling for England, and has gone a distance in re-establishing his credentials. Whatever it was that fired him up should be bottled immediately and tipped into his drinks throughout the winter tour.
The key to the day, however, came not from the England bowlers, nor indeed the frontline Australian batsmen, who were made to suffer every bit as much as their English counterparts, but Warne the batsman, who arrived at the crease with his side floundering at 162 for seven, a deficit still of 18, and while Ricky Ponting stood his ground on the way to grafting out 40 vital runs, launched a counter attack that produced three fours and a six and an eighth wicket stand of 41.
Warne made just 30, on the face of it modest, but in a match in which 23 wickets have fallen and no one has yet reached a half-century, that, from a number nine batsman is riches indeed.
Until Warne produced the long handle, the English bowlers' progress through the Australian order had been as relentless as had theirs been through England's. Bad light had caused two early stoppages, but the day was in only its sixth over when Mark Waugh, who apparently does not think Tufnell can bowl a hoop down the highstreet, was taken at silly point.
