On a slightly showery first day of Ashes cricket, in between marshalling the humming hover cover and painting the crease lines, the local lads roped in to bolster the Edgbaston groundstaff were able to watch one of their own step up for England.

Back in 2005, when Michael Vaughan’s side were blazing their way back into that summer’s epic series, a young Chris Woakes was among the additional cover-wallahs at the ground, doubtless performing his duties in much the same dependable way he plays his cricket these days.

Previously in their shoes, here Woakes was part of a depleted attack charged with filling the more sizeable ones of Jimmy Anderson. The 37-year-old had sent down four overs in the morning, before being bussed off to hospital at lunch for scans on a re-injured calf muscle. With Australia having recovered to 83 for three, a sense of creeping English dread was looming.

And so while Steve Smith’s marvellous lone hand century made it Australia’s day – ensuring Tim Paine’s decision at the toss was not as duff as his Winston Churchill reference 24 hours earlier – that England remain in the contest owes much to the work of Woakes and Stuart Broad in the early afternoon.

The centrality of Edgbaston draws punters from all parts but there is little doubt about the county loyalty of the crowd. This was reflected during the interval when Ian Bell received arguably the loudest cheers of all as six members of the victorious 2005 side were paraded on the outfield.

But the Brummie bellow had gone up a notch further by 2.18pm when another of their own, Woakes, added to his earlier dismissal of Usman Khawaja – caught behind on review to a ball that seamed away – by removing the well-set Travis Head on 35 and Matthew Wade for one in the space of nine balls.

In the case of Head, who had put on 64 precious runs with Smith, it was the ideal right-armer’s set up from over the wicket, firing three across the left-hander’s bows before getting a fourth to nip back in and smash the pads in front.

For Wade, the one-time loudmouth wicketkeeper playing his first Test back as a specialist batsman after barging his way in by weight of runs, it was a similar delivery, albeit one that beat a more whippy and ill-judged shot, with Woakes rightly talking Joe Root into a review on a day to forget for the umpires.