Does this mark the end of the Australian selectors' Barry Houdini phase? For much of the lead-up to the Ashes, Australian cricket's council of wise men seemed stuck for ideas. Stung by the humiliation of defeat in India and the wet mullet of the Champions Trophy exit, the selectors went into full crapacadabra mode in the week before the first Test, falling back on a series of hammy tricks in a bid to inject some vitality into the tatty magician's act of Australian cricket. "Sure, we got rolled in India," Cricket Australia seemed to say in the run-up to Trent Bridge, motioning theatrically towards the centre of the stage as a black casket was wheeled out, "but we just fired Mickey Arthur and here's a new coach with no hair called Boof!"

The last minute, left-field surprise, stretching back to the shock selection of the curator-offspinner Nathan Lyon in 2011, has become something of a standard gesture for Cricket Australia. But whereas Lyon's elevation seemed original and unpredictable and somehow exciting, like something Pakistan might have done in the 1990s, more recently the gestures have come to seem tired and rote, born more of desperation than ingenuity.

Following the debacle at Lord's, it would have been easy for the Australia selectors to reach into the hat in search of another guinea pig. I spent much of last week in terrified anticipation of the announcement of some fresh selection idiocy: "Guys, quick announcement: we discovered this 17-year-old kid out the back of the dunnies at the service station we stopped at on the bus ride from London to Manchester. He is an orphan and was practising his bowling with a homemade ball fashioned from the strips of trousers discarded at the local homeless shelter – and it turns out he holds an Australian passport and can produce a perfect leg break!"

Instead, the selectors did the boring thing and went back to two players – Lyon and Dave Warner – who'd been used, and discarded, before. That was, in retrospect, the right thing to do. Yes, the campaign to "return the urn" may be over (and that may be no bad thing, as far as the hashtag goes at least, since the motto always carried a scent of groundless historical entitlement to it, as if we were Greeks calling for the repatriation of the Elgin Marbles). But in the process, Australia has been given a glimpse of the benefits of patience: Steven Smith, in particular, has blossomed under the umbrella of continuous selection, much like Ian Bell did during his underwhelming opening stanza with England.

The Australians were keen to downplay the positives on Monday. "The result," said Michael Clarke, made his century "irrelevant". "It doesn't mean anything," Brad Haddin added on Sky. In their constant rejection of meaning and relevance, the Australians gave a reading of the Test that was less like cricket, and more like late Beckett. But there were positive signs. Clarke, in particular, provided a timely reminder of his enduring excellence, offering up an innings that fused elegance, composure and grit in such perfect balance that it was possible, for a few visually troubling hours, to think of him as the loinfruit of Damien Martyn and Steve Waugh.

Warner played himself back into form, though thankfully not out of his moustache. And Ryan Harris provided the best display of the art of the popping crease bustle since Carl Rackemann was in his pomp. (Was Carl Rackemann ever in anything resembling a pomp? Probably not. But you know what I mean.) Now that Harris has given us an extended taste of what a truly incisive fast bowling talent he is, we can all look forward to his next 20-over Test spell, in six months' time. Here, truly, is a man with the build of a brick shithouse, and the durability of a single-ply serviette.

Nathan Lyon continues to bowl well without taking wickets. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images

But let's not over-jimmy the argument here. Clarke and Haddin's view of this as a Godot Test – nothing happened, nobody came, nobody won – is probably right, on balance. There's still something strangely unpredictable about this Australian side, even when they play well. Lyon bowls beautifully but takes no wickets; Shane Watson dominates off the front foot but scores no runs. And nothing about events at Old Trafford suggests the side is any less psychologically skinny than it was in the first two Tests. In the on-screen boffins' lingo, Old Trafford was "a good toss to win" (is there ever a toss that's bad to win?).

Much of the commentary over the first few days of the Test focused on whether England would have made as mountainous a first innings total had they won the toss and batted first; the better exercise is to think about how Australia would have fared in their first innings had they batted second. It's not hard to imagine an alternate history in which Australia was sent in in pursuit of 600-odd, Chris Rogers slashed his way to a righteous 46, Warner took a Jimmy Anderson lifter flush to the face and tickled it straight into the hands of Bell at silly mid-off, and we crumbled to be all out for 146.

Equally worryingly, the team remains divided around its two most intriguing personalities: Watto and Warner, the feuding tweet-brothers of this honky tonk Australia side. One is a sad clown who occasionally takes time off from his nude calendar modelling to get out lbw to the ball that nips back in; the other is Australian cricket's version of the career Kuta Beach backpacker, the kind of guy who's always in thongs and always hungover and is always saying something like, "Mate, it's a beer; just drink it."

To describe Warner as a bogan misses the point. He's so Jurassic, so unreconstructed, in his boganitude that he effectively predates bogan. He's the neanderthal to the bogan's homo sapiens. To be exact, he's more like a bevan, the sole survivor of a forgotten species of ocker that bestrode Australia unchallenged before being eclipsed by the superior bogan race. And sure, he's still a goatee short of the full Ponting, but he's a trier; Australian cricket could do with more players like him.

Old Trafford, then, was no more than the hint of a green shoot. One draw, no matter how impressive or loaded with moral triumph, will not be enough to erase the memories of the last few weeks, which have seen Australian supporters suffer the extended torture of repeated slow-motion vision of England players in celebration. That vision – Anderson slowly stretching his arms wide, Graeme Swann pumping his fist, Jonny Bairstow leaping onto Alastair Cook's back – has become Australia's own version of "back, and to the left", something to be played to a soundtrack of screeching early slasher film violins, and it will continue to haunt us for years to come.

"We came here to retain the Ashes and that hasn't worked out," Haddin said on Monday, displaying a memory of the humiliations of 2010-2011 every bit as dim as his strokeplay at Lord's. In batting, bowling, use of DRS and basic grasp of the facts, this Australian side still has a lot of work to banish the nightmare of Lord's. It's not yet clear which direction the resurgence hinted at by Old Trafford will point Australia in: will the side evolve to be like Mitchell Johnson – good for a session or two, then rubbish for months in between – or Jason Gillespie – months of excellence punctuated by the occasional wayward afternoon? Right now, most of Australia would settle for something more like Paul Reiffel. But in abandoning the suburban shopping centre magic show approach to selection policy, Australian cricket has at least made a small first step towards a better future.