Last time I was at Lord’s to watch Australian bowling, it was the Glenn McGrath Show. How the narrow man from Narromine loved that Pavilion End, with its helpful slope, and how he hugged those non-striker’s stumps, almost worming his way around them in order to plough his favoured stump-to-stump furrow. With McGrath still in the mind’s eye, it was a wake-up call for all Australians to watch his successors struggle against the slope this morning – Mitchell Johnson in particular, remonstrating inwardly as his direction deserted him. Poor Johnson. He might as well have tried bowling with his right arm. The most forgettable Australian opening spell at Lord’s since Pat Crawford’s? Go on, look it up.

As his old quarry Mike Atherton wrote in The Times this morning, McGrath has been the difference between the two countries at headquarters on their last three meetings, following in a tradition of virtuoso Australian performances: Trumper, Armstrong, Bradman, Miller, Lawry, Massie, Border, Waugh. The lack of McGrath is already palpable at lunch, likewise the strain on a four-man attack when one bowler is obviously below par: Cook will hardly make a less demanding Test fifty. Siddle made better use of the conditions, locating that in-between zone where an inch or two either way is the difference between holding its line and jagging away, although he was less threatening from round the wicket. Stuart Clark with his Middlesex experience might have been a good investment here: we could then comment nostalgically on his oft-remarked resemblance to McGrath! All things being equal, this could be a long day for Australia; for the sake of this series, it had better be.