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For a while, in the 20 overs after Kevin Pietersen had launched the ball in the direction of the Swan river, seen it stall in the wind and Ryan Harris take the steepler on the boundary, and young Ben Stokes strode to the wicket to join Ian Bell, it was as if it had all been a bad dream from which we had woken.
Suddenly the ball began to flow across the outfield as strokes, pure and elegant, dispatched the bowling to all quarters, scattering the pecking gulls, a century partnership to gladden the hearts of the England supporters baked under an unrelentingly hot sun.
Now, instead of the Persil-white-clad Englishmen hunting leather, it was perspiring baggy greens who chased the ball down in the heat of the afternoon, as bowlers, Johnson, Harris, Siddle, Lyon and Watson, gods these past three matches, were brought down from Mount Olympus to the world of mortals.
It was scintillating, a glimpse into the crystal ball perhaps, for the overwhelming feeling was that even in impending defeat we were witnessing what the politicians like to call the green shoots of recovery, tender as they might be yet, the importance being that while this was Bell, one of the senior players standing up and making a statement with 60, ended with an attempted uppercut and condemned by Snicko but not Hot Spot, it was the new kid, in his second Test, who was catching the eye.
This was still a distraction though, a diversion from the game that for three days has been heading Australia's way. As Stokes tucked his bat under his arm and walked from the field with 72 unbeaten runs to his name, from 96 balls and a dozen boundaries, and Matt Prior for a partner, Australia made their own animated way to the dressing room. They knew that England, with 251 on the board, were all but half way to the target of 504 but in reality were almost certainly five wickets from defeat and the surrender of the Ashes.
If Stokes and Bell had lightened the gloom just a little, it was Australia's day from the moment Shane Watson belted Graeme Swann for 14 runs from the last three deliveries of the opening over to presage a morning session in which they added 134 runs from 17 overs to their overnight 235 for three. Twenty two runs came from the seventh over of the morning too, all to Watson, and all off Swann, who retired from the fray.
England did get rid of Steve Smith, a first-innings centurion, for a strange (in the circumstances) 50-ball 15 that contained no boundaries, but Watson went on to complete a muscular century, his 50 coming from 76 balls with seven fours and a six, and the next 53 from only 30 balls with four more fours and four sixes before succumbing in a very Watto-ish, if novel, way. Attempting to hit Tim Bresnan into orbit, he skied a catch to Bell, waiting by the side of the pitch, who promptly dropped it. Watson meanwhile had left his crease on a resigned head-down trudge back to the pavilion but now tried to scamper his single only for the put-upon bowler, in high dudgeon, to pick up the ball and hurl the middle stump out.
They got rid of Brad Haddin too, something of an achievement even if he was throwing the bat, but George Bailey then sealed the innings by hitting Jimmy Anderson successively for 4, 6, 2, 4, 6, 6: 28 runs from the final over, equalling Brian Lara's 10-year-old record for a Test match.
England's reply, begun seven overs before lunch, got away to the worst possible start, as Harris, with his first delivery of the innings, bowled what might be the best ball of his life to Alastair Cook, something that shaped slightly into the left-hander, so that he saw an angle to mid on, but then left him off the pitch to trim the off bail.
It was the first golden duck of Cook's career and in his 100th Test too, a world away from the centuries scored by Colin Cowdrey and Alec Stewart to mark their own milestones for England. Michael Carberry and Joe Root then batted in composed fashion as Australia threw the kitchen sink at them, until Carberry was lbw for 31 as Watson went round the wicket to him, and then Root, chasing a wide one from Mitchell Johnson, edged low to Haddin, who took a brilliant catch in front of first slip.
Pietersen batted with great assurance for 45, playing in the V and driving down the ground, which is always a good sign that the fancy stuff has been held in check, but having once hit Nathan Lyon massively into the stands, attempted to do it again. The batsman is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't in the way he plays, but as Bell and Stokes showed later, initiative can be wrested back.
Only the fact that Lyon was bowling with the Fremantle Doctor blowing over his left shoulder, so that Pietersen was hitting back into the breeze, should have held him in check: when Australia were belting their sixes, they were doing so down what wind there was. Such small details can make such a difference.
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