Ashes 2015: Alastair Cook not the only one to be caught in The Oval mindwarp

This was almost Test cricket as it used to be, were it not for the absence of tension that has stripped the Ashes finale of significance. England, understandably, could not quite replicate the intensity of Edgbaston and Trent Bridge, and Australia were always going to struggle to deliver the same ineptitude with the bat they had shown in the Midlands.