England belatedly got on the board in the 2025/26 Ashes with their fast-forward win inside two days in Melbourne.
Batting was a torturous experience on an MCG pitch offering seamers a huge amount of assistance.
England emerged on top from this high-octane shootout, getting home by four wickets to claim a first victory on Australian soil since 2011.
That triumph came in very different circumstances, putting the seal on a historic Ashes triumph in Sydney.
Now, back at the same ground, can Ben Stokes' beaten tourists restore a little more pride, or will normal service be resumed?
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Australia vs. England Odds: 5th Test Betting
Australia vs. England 5th Test Prediction
Melbourne being the second two-day Test of the series led to the MCG's beleaguered head curator Matthew Page holding an apologetic press conference on what should have been day three.
As such, the state of the Sydney surface, how it will play and how much it might cost Cricket Australia financially have all been points of pre-match discussion.
In an unhelpful parallel with events at the MCG, Australia's Test against India at the SCG last year also featured four innings where the teams scored under 200. It did at least stretch into a third day, with Scott Boland named man of the match after taking 10 wickets in the game.
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The experienced Australian seamer will probably have liked the look of a deck that was very green 72 hours before this Test, although the expectation is that grass has been left on to guard against the pitch cracking up if the game goes long.
This seems a pretty quaint consideration, given how this series has gone. Overall, it's fair to expect a pitch similar to the Sydney deck from last year. The traditional SCG pitches of old would have been ideal for Todd Murphy and Shoaib Bashir, the Australia and England spinners who are respectively hoping for their first outings of the series.
Nathan Lyon's injury means Murphy has the better chance. The enforced change for England, with the sidelined Gus Atkinson making way, is likely to be Matthew Potts (pictured) getting an overdue Ashes debut.
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As Josh Tongue showed in Melbourne, seamers with a naturally fuller length who challenge the stumps are the men you want in Australia nowadays. If he's in any sort of form, Potts should be a tough proposition for a home batting line-up that – Travis Head and Alex Carey aside – have generally got away with their opponents being a little bit worse.
Joe Root's century in Adelaide is still the lone score of that stature from any England player. Only the much-maligned Zak Crawley at the top of the order has performed with any sort of consistency. Harry Brook's freewheeling 41 was vital in the final analysis in Melbourne, but it's time for the vice-captain to provide something more substantive.
These two flawed are more well-matched than the first three Test results showed, especially considering Australia's injury problems. England can soften the blow of this series of opportunities that got away from them by claiming another consolation win at the SCG, probably annoying their fans a little more in the process