Today, at long last, the Ashes scriptwriter came up with a new storyline. It wasn't just that England made a decent score, with two top-order partnerships instead of the usual one, it was the way that they made the runs, or didn't. They rediscovered a lost art: the art of boredom. Geoff Boycott appeared on telly at lunchtime to make the startling suggestion that batting techniques were better in his time. For the rest of the day, England did their best to prove him wrong, first bowling then batting with all the canny discipline that they had shown in the winter and mislaid in the past two months.

Australia's innings had been a millionaire's garden party, at which only Mark Waugh, solemnly mimicking his absent twin, was prepared to play the pooper. Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn were so exuberantly effective it was easy to miss the fact that only one other Aussie passed 21. All four of England's batsmen have already done so. You can almost hear the shouts of nah-nah-ner-nah-nah.

Mike Atherton set the tone, as he usually does, though often nobody is listening. It looked like one of those days when Marcus Trescothick got out to a shot as extravagantly misguided as Mark Ramprakash's and Alec Stewart's in the last Test: a rare case of Banger being a silly sausage. Like Ramps, he can be forgiven as he had at least built a partnership by the time the madness struck.

It is no mean feat to score slowly against these Aussies, but England now set about doing so. Gilchrist, who had shown signs at the toss of being a more orthodox captain than Steve Waugh, has turned out to be just as buccaneering with his field placings. It's a mystery how Mark Butcher and Nasser Hussain managed to hit the ball to the two outfielders as often as they did. Maybe it has to do with both of them standing knock-kneed at the crease.

But don't let's knock them in England's hour of need. This was good old-fashioned Test cricket - less fun than the Aussie variety, but no less admirable. Hussain did very, very well for a man who has been not so much Essex & England lately as Essex 2nds and the Windsor finger clinic. His 45 is already worth a normal 90.

Butcher, after succumbing to the law of averages at Trent Bridge, is back on the road to being the most unlikely Ashes success story since David Steele in 1975. Steele had a sponsorship deal with his local butcher (those were innocent times); Butcher, maintaining the symmetry, has shown plenty of steel.

All kinds of possibilities now open up. The Australian bowlers could get tired. Gilchrist might have a crisis of confidence and post a third man. The second new ball could even be taken.

England have to last another 15 overs to beat their record in this series, and then another 13 to get umpire Shepherd reaching into his pocket for something redder and shinier than his own face. With only two good balls required to bring in Usman Afzaal, this is no time for complacency: it's a bit like when Dan Quayle was vice-president. But it is a time for quiet satisfaction, for savouring a job well done, and a day that, for once, belonged to England.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden.com.

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