When Steve Smith heard about England’s intent to target Australia with pace in this Ashes, he raised a metaphorical eyebrow. “It’s different on our wickets now,” he said. “These sort of nibblers can be quite tricky. England might have got things the wrong way around in terms of the pace, from previous years.”

By “nibblers” he meant bowlers who prioritise discipline and control over sheer speed. Bowlers who nag away on a repetitive line and length and begrudge the batsmen every single run. Bowlers without tattoos or trophies who thrive on building pressure and exploiting the minutest imperfections in the pitch or the batsmen’s technique.

This was the type of bowler that England used to produce by the shed load (too many in the 1970s and 80s to name) but who have gradually been phased out of the Test team. James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes have retired, Ollie Robinson has been discarded and Gus Atkinson and Matthew Potts — both in this touring party — were not selected for this Test. After the first innings of the first Test in Perth — when the fastest pace attack England have ever fielded torpedoed Australia all out for 132 — England have been exposed by Australia’s persistence and accuracy with the ball and their own erraticism.

Nagging seam bowlers are the beating heart of Australian cricket. I discovered that as soon as I arrived to play grade (club) cricket in Sydney. Our first match was against a team in Young, New South Wales, near where Don Bradman was born. Sent in rather high at No6, I was confronted by a short, stout medium pacer with the keeper stood up. They called him Blood Clot, ostensibly because of his reddish complexion, but it might also have been because he acted as a tourniquet on the run flow.

He was at you every delivery, ramming the ball into the splice, giving you nothing — no width, no drives. None of us lasted long, only partly because the wicketkeeper, nicknamed Bushfire for his red beard, undermined some by hissing: “You’re as welcome out here as an effing turd in a swimming pool.”

Scott Boland is Blood Clot reincarnated. He plugs away at a relentless 83mph, keeper often up to the stumps, adjusting his grip subtly on the ball to coax a smidgen of movement off the largely unblemished surface, angling for a mistake. Instantly locating the right length to target the top of the stumps, bowling straight and to a good length, is hard-wired into his DNA.

Before play on the fourth day in Adelaide, he bowled three deliveries on a practice pitch off a full run. They all hit the rubber stumps that teams use in the warm-ups. His first delivery in each of his first four spells in the match was exactly the same — at off stump on a perfect length. A cut shot against Boland is as rare as a warm Aussie beer. He has taken a steady ten wickets in the three Tests: he is the tireless examiner around whom Australia can base their attack.

Jason Gillespie agrees that discipline is embedded in an Australian bowler’s psyche. “In Australia after the initial 20 overs when the Kookaburra ball goes softer and the seam is not as pronounced, you have to just to lock in and be really disciplined and patient on that third and fourth-stump line — about bail height — and hang in there, landing it on a shoebox,” the former Australia fast bowler said.

“We call it ‘ruthless simplicity.’ I’m not sure if the English bowlers are patient enough to be relentless on that line and length. They seem to have more of a scattergun approach and they seem to keep changing their plans.”

England have no relentless inquisitor. Jofra Archer is the most reliable but does not regularly bowl a wicket-taking length. Ben Stokes, who did not bowl on the third day — presumably due to a combination of exhaustion and exasperation — is the nearest thing England have to a Blood Clot. He reeled off a series of tight overs when England took the field on the fourth morning, asking some questions of well-set batsmen. But Brydon Carse, whose warm-up deliveries, in contrast to Boland’s, lacked any kind of consistency, started with a wide long hop, fed Travis Head’s cut shot and his clip through mid-wicket and conceded 26 from three overs at the other end. England have never been able to sustain a frugal partnership with the ball.

Josh Tongue was tidier and has had a decent match, but both he and Carse leak almost four runs an over in county cricket — cast iron evidence that they lack serious control. Like many English bowlers, they are somewhat flattered by the proud seam, responsiveness and permashine of the Dukes ball. (Their Test match game plan is also disrupted by a plethora of one-day formats.) Rob Key’s idea to introduce the Kookaburra into some rounds of the County Championship was not entirely misplaced. The trouble is none of this England side were playing for their county at the time.

All could learn something from watching the way Pat Cummins operates, bounding into bowl, hammering away at a fullish length, some seam-up, some wobble-seam, varying his position on the crease, chucking in the odd neck-high bouncer just to keep the batter on his toes, gobbling up the opposition’s best player for a pastime. He has now dismissed Joe Root 13 times. His pace was lively, his aim immaculate, his thirst for wickets unquenchable. If he’d played the first two Tests he would have had his hands on the Ashes urn even earlier.