This was the long, hot afternoon Australia’s bowlers were always likely to face if the batting lineup continued to misfire.

While it didn’t help them that temperatures at the Gabba touched 35 degrees with high humidity, the conditions were somewhat poetic in that they represented how repeated batting struggles will invariably put more heat on the team in the field.

Josh Hazlewood and Australia were made to work hard under a hot Brisbane sun.Credit: Getty Images

Since the Lord’s Ashes Test, the most recent game in which Steve Smith had made a century to anchor Australia’s first innings, only three times in 13 innings have Pat Cummins’ men gone past 200 runs for fewer than four wickets down.

At the other end of the scale, they have been four down for fewer than 150 runs eight times over the same period. These sorts of scorelines put massive pressure on the middle and lower-order for runs, and then transfer more onus onto the bowlers to clean up the opposition quickly.

On a series of “good cricket wickets” affording help to bowlers as well as batters this summer, Cummins and company have often been able to recover things. They have been aided, too, by a tremendous summer’s work from Mitchell Marsh at number six.

Alex Carey’s passable impression of his mentor Adam Gilchrist on the second evening here was another instance of a rearguard to........

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