Credit to England and Justin Langer. Adelaide was hotter than Hades yesterday, cruel, debilitating, oven heat that sucked the body dry of moisture and sapped energy.
Concentration was at a premium. Pace bowlers were reduced to spells of no more than three overs, and sometimes two or even one. Cramp was a problem, and in the hour before the close Dean Headley was forced to limp from the field.
But from such days come heroes. Asked to field first (three tosses in a row to Australia), the pace bowlers never relented, even in the face of a wilting assault by the Australian batsmen in the immediate post-lunch period.
One day Darren Gough will wake up to find Elle Macpherson, Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford all squabbling at his door - he deserves some luck. But his fierce pride still fuelled him to bowl magnificently at times, with perhaps the finest and fastest spell of his life to a massively distracted Mark Waugh.
Shortly before the close came some recompense when, armed with the second new ball, he removed the elder twin Steve after a fourth-wicket stand of 108. Graeme Hick's snappy catch at second slip made one wonder what might have been had he held a similar chance off the same bowler offered by Mark Taylor before he had scored. Taylor and Steve Waugh both made 59.
Neither did Alan Mullally nor Headley wither. Mullally plugged away, keeping things tight, drifting the odd one past the bat and doing his stock no harm.
Headley, coming into the game instead of Alex Tudor with the backing of his best form, surged in, took the blows full on the chin, wiped his brow and came back for more. He had Michael Slater dropped early on by Mark Ramprakash at point, only to have him caught in the same over when all instinct said that England would pay dearly for the lapse.
Pace bowlers understand and expect the pain. But perhaps the greatest effort of all came from the least expected source. Peter Such had not bowled a competitive over since he sent down 25 of them against South Australia on this ground a month ago.
Yet, against the odds, and with all trust in Robert Croft's credentials dissipated, he was called into this match and sent down 27 overs - 18 of them off the reel either side of tea - for 57 runs.
No one mastered him and both Taylor and Mark Waugh, a batsman recognised as one of the best in the business against off-spin, succumbed.
Through it all strode Langer, a man under pressure for his place. But he scored a century of courage and distinction that placed Australia in an enviable position after the first day of this match.
At the crease inside the first hour, Langer was still there at the close, having made 108 of Australia's 266 for four in more than 51/2 hours of toil. It was a chanceless, compact innings that contained only five boundaries but numerous threes on the massive ground. The last eight runs came in a little over an hour, as he too suffered from the heat.
Two more Test cricketers yesterday said they had been offered money by bookmakers for information and the Australian Cricket Board, reeling under the barrage of criticism for its handling of the payments to Shane Warne and Mark Waugh, announced it was launching an independent inquiry to try to discover the extent of the problem among its players.
The former Australia player Greg Matthews said he had been approached in Sri Lanka in 1992 and New Zealand's Danny Morrison said he had been invited to sell information during a home match against India four years ago. Both players refused the offers.
