If Brook is a generational talent then surely this is the moment to prove it

They were shocking shots.

- Barney Ronay Adelaide

I'll admit that every day of the week. Especially the one in Perth.It was nearly a bouncer and I’ve tried to drive it. It was just bad batting. The one in Brisbane I’ve tried to hit it for six. That’s what I mean when I say I need to rein it in a bit.”

Oh yes, Harry. This is real transgression. Inject that mild good sense into my throbbing veins. Trash talk binned. Mind games deactivated. Tell me about reining it in again. Shock me with your filthy, filthy conservatism. Talk sensible to me baby.

It is a mark of how far through the looking glass England’s Test cricket boosterism has gone over the past three years that the most convincing battle cry available to this team right now is the sound of their leading middle-order batter saying, hmm, I think I’m going to be a bit more careful out there.

But then, as Harry Brook pointed out in the final round of media duties before the third Ashes Test that starts late tonight UK time, this really is crunch time. Adelaide is a lovely, light, orderly kind of place. It doesn’t feel like a stage for reckoning-ups and last dances. It feels like a larger, squarer, nonfreezing Scandinavia. But this is where we are now, with legacies being divvied up, eras diced, the executive gibbet clanked into place. For England this really is shit or Bazt.