Bazball can be maddening but it has produced thrilling cricket

Suddenly something comes up out of the soil, echoes of other days, stored up energy, ghosts at the edge of the action.

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The first of those, that first Ashes Test in 1881, was so tense it is said one spectator died of a heart attack, while another chewed through an umbrella handle as Fred "the Demon" Spofforth worked his way through England's batsmen.

What was the modern equivalent here? Breaking your refresh button? Spontaneously combusting your own vape? Cricket, which is always dying even while it throbs with vibrant life, is always doing this to us, and always questioning itself, wondering about the end times even while it's out there writing Ulysses again.

Here England needed 35 to win and India three and a half wickets to level the series. The players came out to a huge wave of applause, India's fielders breaking from their huddle to sprint in unison, impossibly heroic already, a group who have given us everything over the past two months.

And this was a day for Mohammed "the Demon" Siraj, who really is the most lovable maniac in sport, and who bowled like a god to win this game.

Jamie Overton hooked the first ball for four and Surrey-cut the next one and you waited for the energy to shift. Prasidh Krishna just laughed and you loved him for it. Jamie Smith still looked stuck, frozen, drained and was duly euthanised from the crease.

England tried to Baz this, to play shots, because how else? But the ball was talking too, and the ball will have its say.

Overton lasted one delivery from Siraj, who was bowling to his own stirring one-man montage soundtrack by now. Simple pieces of Test cricket, a leave, were greeted with huge cheers and gasps like Puccini being roared on by a heavy metal stadium.

Josh Tongue came and went like filler in a western who exists only to be gunned down in the final shootout. And so it came to pass, as Chris Woakes walked down the pavilion steps for his Lord Nelson moment. Kiss me, Gus.