Like some miserable holiday slideshow, back from when people were subjected to those things, day three of the fifth Test featured a montage of vivid images that summed up England’s Ashes.

Will Jacks scrambling beneath a Travis Head slog in front of the Bill O’Reilly stand, only to duck his head and eyes away from the ball for the tourists’ 14th dropped catch of the series.

Michael Neser’s 90-ball vigil as nightwatchman lasting more than twice as long as any innings Ben Duckett has played this series (he faced 40 balls for his 28 in Perth). England burned two reviews trying to winkle the Queenslander out.

The second, a full LBW shout that proved to have hit Neser outside off stump, rendering the review null and void, came with bowler Brydon Carse and wicketkeeper Jamie Smith as the only English players within 40 metres of the batter. The rest were spread to either the boundary or halfway there – for the nightwatchman, that is.

Whether 25-year-old Smith, enduring a mostly wretched first Ashes tour, had the certainty to pipe up and shoot down England’s call upon the DRS, is doubtful.

As the morning rolled on, Travis Head brought up another century and motored on to 163, with........

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