England v Australia, 2015

At Lord's, July 16-19. Australia won by 405 runs. Toss: Australia. Test debut: P. M. Nevill.
It was inevitable, really. At some stage, England were going to get Smithed. Anyone who has visited a replica historical town knows this generally involves being left among burning coals, then hammered flat. England endured both - and the only red-hot form emerging from the forge belonged to Australia's captain-in-waiting.

No player was more stung by Cardiff than Steve Smith. He had publicly castigated himself for a pair of 33s that, for some, would not have constituted a bad day at the office. But, since his maiden century - at The Oval in 2013 - he had answered to stricter criteria. By the second day here, those two years had produced ten hundreds in 35 innings, a rate not quite up with Bradman, but close enough to stir his name; all ten had come in his team's first innings, none in a losing cause, and his average across the period was 80.

Following a recent pair of 190s, he now completed his first Test double-century - only Australia's third at Lord's - leading them to 566. To build such scores requires a partner. Australia's march really began with Rogers, ordained in the Church of the Latter-Day Bloom, a 37-year-old opener in the final series of an unexpected Test career. Clarke had won the toss and, on a pure batting track prepared to quell English fears of Johnson, cheerfully gave Rogers first use. With half his previous 72 first-class centuries made in England, he had been key to Australia's planning. Yet things could have gone differently had the third ball of the match been edged a little lower. Instead, Rogers cleared Root in the cordon. Two balls later he unspooled a cover-drive like a roll of silk.

For the first hour Rogers surfed adrenaline. At one stage he had 23 runs to Warner's six, but his partner soon joined in and, despite a fine spell from Broad, Australia's openers added 78. Their stand ended when Warner gave the final ball of Ali's first over, the 15th of the morning, an ugly slap that settled with Anderson at mid-off: a team compulsion to attack England's off-spinner had failed again.

As if Warner were an intoxicant leaving his system after a wild night, Rogers blinked and asked himself what on earth he had been doing. The ground was immaculate, the sun shining, and the sober Smith prepared to guide him through temptation. They added 26 in 12 overs to lunch, and 87 in the session after, the only excitement coming when Bell dropped Smith low down at slip on 50. The hurt that would inflict was not yet clear.

As the day wound on, Rogers assumed a persona familiar to Middlesex fans. Slinking from end to end was the old fox of 46 Lord's fixtures. Time and again he played between keeper and point - late cuts, square-drives and dabs, targeting the downhill run. It was local knowledge at its best. The partnership swelled after tea, each batsman registering a century, before Australia closed on 337 for one. Local opinion frothed about the pitch, and the groundsman frothed about ignorance of sporting horticulture. First ball next day, Rogers took an Anderson bouncer on the head.

He played on to Broad five overs later for a career-defining 173, the partnership of 284 Australia's highest at the ground for any wicket. "I've scored a hundred at the MCG and one at the SCG," said Rogers. "So for me to get one at Lord's was the trifecta." Clarke's bad back was evident as he pulled Wood to square leg for seven, Voges nibbled behind for 25, and Broad added a third when Mitchell Marsh, an all-round replacement for the out-of-favour Shane Watson, played on for 12. But wicketkeeper Peter Nevill, playing in Brad Haddin's absence for family reasons, stuck around to help put on 91 with Smith;

Nevill later held seven catches. Party time arrived when Smith passed 200, and it took the fiesta to distract him, falling for 215 to a reverse sweep at a Root off-break. Nevill went for 45, and Clarke called off the show eight wickets down. Broad's four for 83 was exemplary in the circumstances: his three seam-bowling colleagues managed one for 268 between them, while Anderson would finish the match without a wicket for the first time in his 18 Lord's Tests. Australia had batted 149 overs.

Cook is their man for such times. A radio wit called him "The Crowbar", one of the great leavers. His stubbornness was displayed in a fight across two days and 79 overs. If only something similar had happened at the other end. Australia had faced one over after tea before declaring and, if that was meant to unsettle England, it worked. Lyth went second ball, fiddling unnecessarily at Starc. Then, after eight overs, it was time for Johnson. He can impose himself so hard on matches you feel the structure shudder, as if he's running into the wall of a flimsy holiday home. Watch from behind the batsman and you see a shifting block of muscle, broader than seems possible in profile. Take in the litheness of his movement, the prowl of his run, the explosion of his action, and it's no surprise he can get inside 11 heads.

Even with only three wickets for the innings, he did for England, generating pace and bounce from a pitch derided as a batsman's paradise. The immobile Ballance was hypnotised, and his stumps detonated; Root followed a short ball outside off as if entranced by a swinging pendulum. In between, Hazlewood trimmed Bell's stumps with a beauty that straightened: 30 for four.

Not that the next pair gave it away. The word to describe Stokes is "bottle", poorly defined and quickly understood. Through 44 overs he alternately counter-attacked and toughed it out, until near lunch on day three. Then it became Marsh's moment. To bowling that was once popgun he had added speed and swing. Stokes drove without gauging either, dragging on for 87; deep in the second session, Cook, on 96, did the same, still short of a home Ashes hundred.

Ali and Broad carted a few, but when Broad was last out, edging Johnson to slip, 312 was still miles adrift. With almost seven sessions to play, Clarke declined the follow-on, before Rogers and Warner - dropped by Lyth at gully on nought - put on 108 before stumps. But, again, the morning brought drama, when dizziness overtook Rogers, thought to be a delayed response to that hit on the head. He retired one short of a ninth score of 50-plus in ten innings. Warner holed out for 83, Smith slapped 58, which fractionally decreased his career average - but meant he became the first Australian since Bradman at The Oval in 1934 to score a double-hundred and a half-century in the same Ashes Test - while Marsh scattered the members in the Pavilion. Clarke left England 509 to win, or five sessions to draw.

They survived the three overs to lunch, but hope soon collapsed. It was no surprise to see Lyth nick Starc for the second time in the match, but it was to see Cook's flat-footed whack at a Johnson delivery so wide he almost had to write it a letter. The captain was clearly exhausted. Marsh's first ball snorted Ballance, and Bell edged to short leg. Then came the match's iconic moment: Root clipped Marsh to midwicket, where Johnson produced a raptor swoop and in a miracle of fluid motion smashed the stumps at the striker's end. Stokes had run 23 yards, but had somehow levitated over his crease like Yogi Bear after a picnic basket, both feet suspended mid-air.

When your pace spearhead is producing direct-hit run-outs, you know the force is with you: Flintoff at The Oval in 2009, Johnson at the MCG in 2013, now this - the energy, the charisma, smashing stumps even when he's not bowling, surging, swarming the opposition, carrying team-mates along. Johnson resumed after tea: a nick from Buttler first ball, a panic-catch skewed from Ali's throat with the fifth. England were crushed in 37 overs for 103, the margin of 405 Australia's third-biggest Ashes win in terms of runs. Johnson finished with 299 Test wickets.

The wreckage was notable for many things. For Johnson, a vanquishing of his Lord's demons. For Rogers, conviction at last that he belonged. For Smith, the next level. For Australia, back in the series, a reclaiming of the citadel at which they had lost once in 113 years before 2009. But there was significance too for England, stung as Australia had been at Cardiff, and suddenly questioning their tremulous focus on neutralising Johnson. Outside the team, a clamour arose to abandon defensive pitches, to change English thinking and back English bowling. Inside, it began to have an effect. Somewhere out there in the darkness was a green beast, its hour come round at last, slouching towards Birmingham to be born.
Man of the Match: S. P. D. Smith. Attendance: 114,955.