Joe Root falls late as England once again look like a team that might win, right up until the point when they don’t

At 6.51pm Sydney time, England were cruising. Joe Root had just despatched Mitchell Starc’s first delivery with the new ball for four. The sun was out. The songs were flowing. England were 228-3 and an entirely satisfactory day was winding towards a close. England’s Ashes troubles felt, if not quite behind them, then certainly something from another year.

At 6.52pm, Root was crouched disconsolate over his bat: his knees buckling, his face covered, his mind still not quite believing. He had batted beautifully for his 83 runs, but this would be the end of the road. Not only had he failed again to turn a half-century into a century. He had handed the momentum of the game back to Australia on the cusp of stumps. Starc was laughing like a man who had just struck oil in his driveway.

At 7.01pm, a minute past the scheduled close, Jonny Bairstow was out too. And so a platform that England had spent 80 overs painstakingly constructing was kicked from beneath them in the space of a few minutes.

It was a day that encapsulated their series, a day that encapsulated their tour, a day that in many ways encapsulated this side. Real promise, not just in flashes but over sustained periods. A comfort that at times verged on serenity. A team that looked like it might win, right up until the point it didn’t. Even 233-5 is a competitive score, albeit probably not competitive enough. If nothing else, England will be able to claim the most respectable 4-0 thumping in Test history.

On a glorious batting strip, England’s top order reverted to type: no century for Root, no substantial score for Mark Stoneman or James Vince, and ultimately an outcome that was a poor reflection of all their hard work. Only Dawid Malan remains of their specialist batsmen, 55 not out and a helpless bystander to the carnage that unfolded in the last few overs of the day. With a decent score on the board, England would have been favourites on a wearing pitch. Thanks to those two late wickets, they are once again chasing the game.

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It was a deceptively crucial toss for Root to win, even if Smith tried to pretend otherwise. Rain had delayed the start of play for more than two hours, forcing an early lunch. When it cleared Root won the toss and batted, a decision that despite the overcast conditions and light grass sheen on the wicket, was probably easier than it looked: one that claimed first use of a slow pitch for their batsmen and gave last use of it to their spinners. And as the clouds finally gave way to bright sunshine, Barmy Army songs and beautiful batting conditions, England could finally glimpse some light at the end of a long, gruelling tour.

Not that the road there was a smooth one, by any means. When Alastair Cook was out for 39 to leave England 95-3 before tea, another grim clatter of dominoes beckoned. Australia had bowled modestly, and yet were perhaps just one wicket away from seizing a firm grip on the game. And indeed both teams - understandably, after the stultifying slog of the Melbourne Test - looked a little down on their usual intensity. Starc had been passed fit for this game, but was a few mph short of his best.

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At least Pat Cummins, playing a Test on his home ground for the first time, looked sharp, taking the first two England wickets to fall. Stoneman played a relentlessly aggressive cameo, full of straight drives, flashing cuts and swings at fresh air. There was a certain inevitability, alas, to his dismissal off the outside edge, for 24 off 24 balls: a good-looking innings, to be sure, but one that was ultimately about as substantial as a see-through shirt.

Vince played the two best shots of the day - a slapped square drive and a front-foot pull, both melting off the bat and away to the boundary. He left well, too: getting himself in, building himself a platform. But in the first over after drinks, he played an uppish cut to a short wide one - the sort that Smith or Stoneman or, frankly, your dad would probably have swatted to the point fence without blinking - and got a faint edge on it.

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Earlier in his innings, Vince had left a virtually identical delivery alone. So what happened this time? A little extra bounce? A lapse of concentration? Over-eagerness? Enough. No further questions. There comes a logical point when the serial failure to realise potential must begin to render that potential irrelevant. There comes a point when an international batsman must stop getting out to bad balls. There comes a point when you simply have to channel Yoda: do or do not, there is no ‘try’. Cut the cord. Pull the chain. Flush him away. Barring an unlikely second-innings century, Vince’s time has come and gone.

What made it an even less auspicious time to lose a wicket was that Josh Hazlewood was beginning to get the ball to reverse appreciably. A scintillating inswinger did for Cook, and so, in the space of 15 minutes, England’s innings had been turned on its head. Australia had two new batsmen to bowl to, tea was approaching, and Smith must surely have harboured ambitions of seizing the game within its first session.

All of which renders Root and Malan’s resistance all the more commendable. The pitch was slow enough for Root to work straight balls off his pads without too many issues. Malan, meanwhile was a compliant straight man for the most part: leaving well, scoring most of his runs square and behind square, trying to throw Lyon off his length by advancing down the pitch.

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Yet three times Malan could have been out off the spinner. First, when he remained rooted to the spot as Root scampered through for a single and was only saved by Tim Paine’s poor throw to the bowler’s end. Second, when Smith let a low catch squirm through his hands at slip. And third, when he tapped the ball into the on-side only for Cameron Bancroft at short leg to gather it and shy at the stumps.

Root, too, saw his innings blessed by providence. On 67 top-edged a hook off Cummins that fell in between the two men on the boundary. The ball before he was dismissed, in fact, he almost got an inside edge onto his own stumps. If other batsmen might have taken that as a sign that they should probably knuckle down for the next few overs, Root is made of different stuff. He clipped the next ball, a straight half-volley, through square-leg, only he failed to keep the ball down. Mitchell Marsh pouched the low catch, and once again Root had snatched calamity from the jaws of tranquility.

Surprisingly, England did not send in a nightwatchman. Chris Woakes is normally their man, but he was injured, and so Bairstow decided to take matters into his own hands. And when he nicked the last ball of the day from Hazlewood, there was a curious sense of predestination to it: as if everyone knew exactly what was about to happen. Perhaps, in some oblique and crucial way, we have all known since Brisbane. England: a team that look like they might win, right up until the point when they don’t.