After spending the third day sleepwalking round the Oval, Australia grew more decisive before the rain stopped play
It should have been too much. Five Ashes contests, six Test matches, just over seven weeks, right at the tail end of all, a visiting team that was done. The Australians had spent the third day groping around the field like sleepwalkers headed to the fridge who ended up in the laundry closet, and early the next were set 384 to win. England had enjoyed the emotional burnish of Stuart Broad’s retirement announcement, having been given the entire third evening and fourth morning to polish the idol.
Australia played ball, lining up in a guard of honour as he came down the steps to bat with his offsider Jimmy Anderson, the teams putting on a couple of overs to give Broad a chance to hit one final six in a career that has featured 55 of them. That should have been that, Australia waiting to be overwhelmed by the task at hand and the workload preceding it before buckling the Ashes trophy into its own airline seat and bringing it home at 2-2.
