Squad rotation is an increasingly referenced phenomenon in modern sport. Cricket, with its many different formats, lucrative domestic leagues and uniquely awkward toll on the bodies of its athletes, seems particularly suited to the need to strategically rest its players. We play for each other; all for one team and one team for all. It could almost be a line from The Communist Manifesto.

And, like communism, it sounds utopian — in theory. Hardly, however, in practice. As Mitchell Starc tore in during the first over of his second spell, already with 12 off the over, team unity can surely have been further from his mind. Shane Warne offered a few cutting comments on commentary. The crowd, as any Ashes one is prone to do, burst into ironical cheers. This wasn’t one for all, this was one for one.

This, in reality, is the reason Starc has only entered the Ashes series in the fourth Test. Leading World Cup wicket-taker he may be, but his red-ball returns, over the winter against India and in the intra-squad warm-up last month, did not merit his place in the side. These were the same returns that we saw play out on Friday. And yet, despite this evidence and the numbers to hand — at tea, he was going at more than one run per over more than any other bowler — the party line persists.