Stonewalled: Nathan Lyon was the pick of the bowlers but claimed just one wicket.

Stonewalled: Nathan Lyon was the pick of the bowlers but claimed just one wicket. Photo: AFP

As negative as the cricket was, England's defensive effort was a sobering, no, stupefying, reminder that they are skilled not just in winning Test matches, but in the equally decisive art of not-losing them. Their aim was, if not to defeat Australia, then to engender disappointment. In this they have been successful.

Since Lord's, England have contested the series like the second leg of a cup tie when the first leg has been won. They have passed the ball around in their own half, shut the thing down, and been ready to hit on the break, as they did on the last day at Durham.

Mitchell Starc of Australia appeals successfully for the wicket of Jonathan Trott. Click for more photos

Fifth Ashes test - Day 3

Mitchell Starc of Australia appeals successfully for the wicket of Jonathan Trott. Photo: Getty Images

It's not pretty, and if truth be told, stumps on Friday had this viewer thinking of Martin Amis after he finished reading Don Quixote, weeping tears not of relief but of pride at having survived the book's best efforts to crush him.

England will feel a similar pride to have put their stonewalling game through its paces. They did it to Australia in Cardiff in 2009, and to New Zealand twice in their recent away series. Forcing a draw today can produce a victory tomorrow, because it saps the bowling team of self-belief. Nathan Lyon was the standout among a group of Australian bowlers who tried everything they could. With some more luck, some more skill, or even some fielders who could throw straighter or take the blinding catch, they might have had the wickets to reward their endeavour. But in the end, England repelled and perhaps also disillusioned them.

By the end of play, the full house at the Oval could be divided into those dismayed by the lack of action and those delighted by the length of their beer snakes. Presumably there were also some who remembered that a lot of Test cricket used to be like this. This is a game, after all, that in 1939 did what mathematics cannot, and defined eternity itself: a timeless Test abandoned after ten days. The run rates in that match, by the way, were faster than England's on Friday.

It's only in recent years that playing for a draw, especially as early as the third day, has come to be viewed as a recipe for disaster. Letting bowlers dictate terms, batting like a corpse with pads (thank you, Bill), is thought to be self-defeating. But the bowlers who dictated those terms in the past 20 years included the best crop of spinners who have ever played. No batsman born could stonewall for days on end against Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Anil Kumble and friends. The era also produced the game's best fifth-day pacemen, from Malcolm Marshall to Wasim Akram to Glenn McGrath, who could not be resisted on dying wickets, no matter how straight the bat.

Today's cricket has fallen back to the historical norm. Those kinds of bowlers are not around, and so the possibilities of blocking out a draw have expanded. South Africa and India, the two teams ranked higher than these two, have also shown a postwar capability to throttle the life out of Test matches that they could not find a way to win.

For Australia, there is a lesson to be learnt from England's sandbagging, a reminder that to win back the Ashes they must not just outplay England, but actually defeat them. Darren Lehmann put it very well in his first press conference as coach, back in June. His aim was not to 'improve', or 'compete', or 'play with intent', or 'dominate'. It was to win. Australia has achieved first-innings leads throughout this series, and if Lehmann's men were playing England in the Sheffield Shield, they wouldn't be far behind. But dominating sessions and winning first-innings points are not the goals he set.

England's batting here might also dim the lights in the lounge of the kidded, where there are some who say Australia are morally all-square in the series. We would have won at Old Trafford. We did win in Durham, more or less, except for a session on the last day. We as good as won in Trent Bridge, give or take 15 runs. Hey, when you add it up, we won the Ashes!

The English team don't seem to share that view. Their batting at the Oval showed that there was nothing inevitable about the rained-out last day in Manchester. A team in the image of their captain and coach, England aren't attractive, but they are effective. Block, block block was the opening line of a poem about one of England's greatest, Nottinghamshire's William Scotton. If this brand of cricket seems unnecessarily grim, that is perhaps because we have been spoiled for so long.