The day at the Gabba in Brisbane when the Bazball of Ben Stokes, Brendon McCullum and England was played without boldness against Australia and a rampant Mitchell Starc

England will disagree they had given up on dismissing Starc, but their approach suggested otherwise. They have attacked Starc the bowler with more gusto than Starc the batter. Neither worked. It was almost as if they believed by making him bat for longer, it would sap him of the energy to bowl.

With the second pink ball still newish, Stokes spread the field for Starc, deploying four boundary riders, and no one to save a single. He may as well have passed Starc a note saying “we can’t get you out”.

“They were trying to allow him to take the single and do what he wanted to do,” England assistant coach Marcus Trescothick said.

“We were then trying to bowl in a way that would hopefully force an error or cause a mistake and it didn’t happen in the fashion we wanted it to do, the bowlers being more tired at that stage. Nonetheless, he played well.

“Credit to him how he went about his business. He made it tricky for us and got Australia into a position where they are now.”

Starc, whose 77 was Australia’s top score and his best knock in nine years, has regularly dictated proceedings with the ball but seldom with the bat, yet here he was marshalling England like a traffic cop, choosing at his pleasure when to allow them through to bowl at Boland.

Of the 16 overs Boland was at the crease before lunch, he faced more than two balls in the over just three times. England could not string enough deliveries together to build the pressure around the No.10. He and Starc added 75 for the ninth wicket, a record for Australia at this venue.

“That was odd,” Australian Test great Adam Gilchrist, a commentator for Kayo Sports, told this masthead about the tactics to Starc. “They didn’t try to get him out, they didn’t even bring the field up for the fifth ball, and he’d take one. It was all a bit odd.

“I’m not sure what the tactic was, it didn’t work and allowed Mitchell Starc time to keep his eye in, feel more and more comfortable with every ball. He was always going to hurt you because he’s a very skilful player when he gets the opportunity.

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“It was an error in judgment, I think.”

Starc shunned his natural aggression to adapt to the game, one of the traits which stand-in captain Smith said defined the Australian way of playing Test cricket.

“We always talk about playing at our own tempo,” skipper Pat Cummins said during a calling stint on Kayo Sports. “We want to drive the game, and control the game. I think this morning was the perfect example of that.”

England’s Bazballers read the game like it is written in hieroglyphics.

Take Ollie Pope’s reflex shy at the stumps from short leg, which gave Starc an overthrow to get off strike on the fifth ball of an over and see out the final over before tea; or the desperate dive right on the break to save a boundary, resulting in a three which gave Starc the strike first up after the interval.

Scoring was not Australia’s main objective. Minutes mattered as much as runs to an Australian team which wanted England to start their innings at twilight or, better still, under lights.

The payoff came in the final session when England’s batters, their minds frazzled by the extra hours in the sun and the ugly set of numbers on the scoreboard, repeated the mistakes they made two weeks earlier. Their third, fourth, fifth and sixth-wicket pairings added half that of Starc and Boland.

“Tactically, Australia today have played it perfectly,” Gilchrist said. “They started their approach from the start of the day with the end of the day in mind.”

England was the chess novice unaware their opponent was several moves ahead. It’s too late now to avoid checkmate.

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