The beauty of Test cricket lies in its variety. No two matches are the same, and that goes for the bad ones, too.
Lord's has had its fair share of duffs, and this 150th match on the ground was right down there. A roundly criticised pitch played to its crass nature right to the very end of England's 115-run win in the first Test against New Zealand.
Outrageous lateral movement combined with unpredictable bounce - Jacob Bethell's second-innings dismissal almost burrowing underground - offered peril at every axis for the batters. Gus Atkinson rattling Matt Henry's off stump a generous three-quarters of the way up to finish it all made it 24 bowled or lbw dismissals in the match, a new record for a Test in England.
Atkinson, no stranger to the Lord's honours board, joined Ollie Robinson, Kyle Jamieson and Nathan Smith in clinching a five-wicket haul in this Test. Fresh from the IPL's annual run-gorge, who could begrudge a few days out for the bowlers? The contrast, however, was excessive, to a coffee-after-mouthwash degree.
The 996 deliveries altogether was the third fewest for any men's Test in which both teams were bowled out. The grubbers, the shin-ticklers, the glove-rappers and the right-angle-deviators among them contributed to a wicket every 25 balls. A format that relies upon rhythm was left in an off-beat funk.
Of course, the one actual beauty of Test cricket is still having to put yourself out there to do the job. Finding a way to groove to that rhythm, even one as irregular as this. There may be snakes on the dance floor, but you've still got to dance.
England, ultimately, were more willing to get bitten in the two-step. They were responsible for the only two half-centuries, each fraught with risk and equal with luck. Harry Brook's 56 and Emilio Gay 57 were each, spiritually, for the loss of three, with both gifted a brace of reprieves before they had made their 26th and maiden fifty-plus score, respectively.
"It probably was the right surface to go out there and put a little pressure back on their bowlers," Brook offered on his 10-boundary effort. While Gay's was more subdued, with eight inside 95 deliveries, he did not pull the punches he threw. Unperturbed by an array of missed drives, the first of those eight fours was an aerial carve through backward point, off his 21st delivery.
"I thought the way that we committed to trying to score off anything that was slightly loose on this wicket is what allowed us to get up to 250 run lead," Ben Stokes said of a method also purveyed by Ben Duckett (33) and Jamie Smith (39) in the second innings. "Because we knew that we weren't going to get that many scoring opportunities from this New Zealand attack. [They] was so relentless in their plans and executions, and we knew we had to capitalise on anything that was presented to us to score, because in between that was going to be tough."
Stokes's side have recent experience of these low-quality crapshoots. Had rain not stretched out the 166 overs to take this game into day four, it could have joined Perth and Melbourne as a third two-day Test in England's last six.
It's true to say this is an English batting group that has opted for the nuclear option too hastily in the past when more diplomatic approaches might have succeeded. But, for the first time in a while, New Zealand's error was in not following their lead, or heeding the early warning of dismissing England for 140 inside 40 overs when effectively a bowler down through Matt Henry's opening day back spasm. In that time, Robinson, transfixed to the television in the home dressing room, had sussed that stump-to-stump wobble seam was the way to go, leading to the triple-wicket maiden in his first over.
Glenn Phillips was the only visiting batter to show the necessary initiative, eventually finishing as top-scorer in the match, with 78 runs (off 91 deliveries) for just once out. Coming in at 20 for 5 and then 58 for 6 chasing 254 put the onus on him to flex his considerable muscles. It was only during Phillips's unbeaten 44 from 52 on Sunday that Stokes opted to contain, spreading the field to focus on the other end.
Granted, Phillips, as one of the more devastating T20 batters going, can access that side to his game easier than most. But the rest of the New Zealand top seven are hardly shot-less mutes. Tom Blundell is the only one of them with fewer than 90 international white-ball caps. Accordingly, they were still rueing their own passivity long after the formalities were completed.
"I know the guys are already speaking about that - whether it was an opportunity to come out and be a little bit more positive," Tom Latham said in his post-match press conference having just left a chastened away dressing room.
"In saying that, the ball still was doing plenty and the result may have been the same. But whether we could have showed a little bit more intent, certainly if we're offered it... We saw GP [Phillips] today - I think the way he came out and played positive cricket, it's his natural game, but it put them under a little bit of pressure. I guess if we were potentially able to do that a little bit earlier then things may have been different.
"Whether you win or lose, you're always looking to finetune things, and things that you could maybe have done better, and I guess that could have been one thing."
A bad Test match is finally over. A grimy but valuable win pocketed by England to kickstart a new era under Brendon McCullum takes them into a 1-0 lead in the Crowe-Thorpe trophy.
For New Zealand, they leave with much to forget, other than a lesson to learn that erring on the side of positivity if they are greeted with such a pitch again is the way to go. For the sake of them and Test cricket as a whole, let us hope those learnings do not have to be applied any time soon.