Stokes: "Australia is not a country for weak men ... "

PL reports from the wreckage of England's Ashes campaign

CART MASTER: Throw out your dead

CUSTOMER: Here’s one.

CART MASTER: Nine pence.

DEAD PERSON: I’m not dead!

CART MASTER: What?

CUSTOMER: Nothing. Here’s your nine pence.

DEAD PERSON: I’m not dead!

CART MASTER: ‘Ere. He says he’s not dead!

CUSTOMER: Yes, he is.

DEAD PERSON: I’m not!

CART MASTER: He isn’t?

CUSTOMER: Well, he will be soon. He’s very ill.

DEAD PERSON: I’m getting better!

CUSTOMER: No, you’re not. You’ll be stone dead in a moment.

CART MASTER: Oh, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.

DEAD PERSON: I don’t want to go on the cart!

CUSTOMER: Oh, don’t be such a baby.

CART MASTER: I can’t take him.

DEAD PERSON: I feel fine!

CUSTOMER: Well, do us a favor.

CART MASTER: I can’t.

CUSTOMER: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won’t be long.

CART MASTER: No, I’ve got to go to the Robinsons’. They’ve lost nine today.

CUSTOMER: Well, when’s your next round?

CART MASTER: Thursday.

DEAD PERSON: I think I’ll go for a walk.

CUSTOMER: You’re not fooling anyone, you know. Look. Isn’t there something you can do?

DEAD PERSON: [singing] I feel happy. I feel happy.

At 11.48 am local time, Ben Stokes strode alone around the empty Gabba outfield and into the dressing sheds. Alone in his thoughts and almost alone in his carrying any hopes England had of salvaging something from this Test match. Just after 3 pm, a grateful English crowd, and presumably some appreciative Australians, rose to their feet and applauded as Stokes, this time in the company of Will Jacks, strode back through the same gates.

The England captain hadn’t won the match for his country, hadn’t posted a century, indeed, he was still 14 runs short of his half-century, but he had in that two hours of play restored a little sanity to England’s generally unhinged performance in this series.

His 50, when it did come, took 148 deliveries and was the second slowest of his career. There was, for those of us fortunate enough to be at Headingley in 2019, when he’d posted an even slower 50, a creeping sense of deja vu about the way things were shaping here.

Stat courtesy of Channel 7’s @sirswampthing

History, however, was not about to repeat itself. Stokes had taken a nasty blow to the nether regions just before reaching the landmark, and his side took another soon after when the Australian captain Steve Smith decided it was time to end this nonsense.

England will at least console itself that it had held back the storm for a session or so, and that it took something extraordinary to break the 221-ball partnership between Stokes and Jacks.

Chances had been few and far between, but when one did come from the edge of Jack’s bat, Smith pulled off a miraculous one-handed catch low and to his left. The pair's 96-run partnership had given England a 47-run lead. Blindsided by Carey, he’d moved wider, further exacerbating the level of difficulty.