Most cricket theories have the life of a june bug; some persist, because the facts are fitted to them. The Ashes is a splendid environment in which to observe the latter. On Saturday night while waiting to be the token Aussie on BBC Wales, for instance, I listened to Geoff Boycott’s condemnation of England’s failures, harping on the population density of English ‘backroom staff’, which he numbered at 16. The only backroom staff Boycott ever needed, of course, was his grandmother, that formidable all-rounder beside which so many modern players pale by comparison. There followed a list of great players of the past who needed no such molly-coddling, Len Hutton being mentioned at least half a dozen times, only slightly less often than the speaker himself.

There’s a kernel of truth to Boycott’s complaint. What exactly was Mushtaq Ahmed doing in Cardiff? If Swann and Panesar could not work this pitch out for themselves, then they should not be playing first-class cricket, let alone a Test match. Yet was England ‘backroom staff’, especially Troy Cooley, not the reason so many smart analysts gave for the team’s 2005 triumph? A noteworthy omission from Boycott’s survey was any sense that Australia had played at all well – Ponting’s team were hardly mentioned. It was a long-held gripe of Steve Waugh that Australia’s long run of Ashes victories were always felt here to be an outcome of English failure rather than antipodean excellence. I hope critiques of the 2009 Ashes series don’t also slip into this pattern.

Ponting’s team certainly deserve better. They were excellent on the field, and pretty good off it too. The captain’s press conference after the game was a model. Despite the efforts of the bomb-throwing wing of the Australian press to incite him, he declined to inveigh against the late-innings incursions of England’s twelfth man and physiotherapist. What he actually said was: “I was unhappy with it, but it lasted a couple of minutes, and we got them off the ground. I don’t want to make that big a deal with it. I’m sure others will be taking it up with the England hierarchy, as they should. It’s not the reason we didn’t win. We’ve got to look at those reasons.” From the headlines, you’d think Ponting had had a Bill Woodfull moment. On the contrary, it was a straight answer to a straight question; no dissembling; no provocations.

He can feel well satisfied with his week’s work, and even his ration of fortune. England’s luck in this game was obvious: the toss, first innings, the injury to Lee. Australia’s came disguised: the injury to Lee led to the selection of Hilfenhaus; the absence of Watson left no doubt about North’s position, just as in Australia in 2006-7 when it expedited the return of Clarke. The one series he has completed successfully being Australia’s defeat in India last year, an incapacitated Watson seems almost to have become Ponting’s talisman. It’s a theory anyway – one Watson needs to disprove sooner rather than later.

From an unpromising scenario, Australia and England have conjured a minor classic of Test cricket today, the outcome of five days’ red-blooded striving, in doubt until the last of 2537 legitimate deliveries, keeping the series alive for the Lord’s Test when victory for Australia would probably have been a huge blow to local interest. In 2005, of course, England came back after losing the opening encounter of the series. Then, though, there were nine days between the First and Second Tests; here there are three, and an Australian team still running on the adrenaline of victory would, I suspect, have been virtually unbeatable, on a ground on which they have lost once since 1896.

Proceedings finished at 6.40pm in brilliant sunshine, a stark contrast to the overcast conditions in which much of the game took place, and fit for hours more play. There being no issue with the light, in fact, Ponting’s deployments towards the end were somewhat surprising: only 21 deliveries of the Anderson-Panesar stand were delivered by a pace bowler, Siddle; 36 came from Hauritz and 12 from North. Understanding Ponting’s desire to maximise his balls bowled, all the Australians needed was one ball, the right ball, and the likeliest bowler to bowl it, Hilfenhaus, was trusted with only a dozen last-day overs. We will hear more of this.

Likewise the speculative ventures onto the field of Bilal Shafayat and Steve McCaig, probably more cock-up than conspiracy, but an egregious one. It is time to consider addressing these incursions. In every other game, the presence of reserves, substitutes or ancillary staff is carefully regulated. Cricket still operates on genteel but obsolete assumptions that no player or captain would abuse the privilege they enjoy of requesting new equipment or physical assistance, although we know such visits are seldom about their ostensible purpose. ‘The captain’s sending out new gloves,’ we nod sagely. ‘There must be a message.’ (There’s the famous story about Len Hutton sending Vic Wilson out with a banana when he thought Colin Cowdrey was playing too freely just before lunch. ‘You’re batting so poorly, the captain thought you must be hungry,’ Wilson said.) Bringing these visits more firmly under the jurisdiction of the umpires would remove their ambiguity.

Twenty-four hours ago, the 2009 Ashes were looking a little cold. This result has stirred their embers. More to come when I’ve examined the grate a little more closely.