Andrew Strauss takes his England cricket team from Melbourne to Sydney for the final, celebratory chapter of their enthralling Ashes campaign assured but not smug in the assumption that opponents so long regarded as gods have been reduced to a larrikin rabble.
His counterpart, Ricky Ponting, fighting for his own future as much as that of his bedraggled team, will learn officially at noon tomorrow (1am GMT) if his captaincy is to be cut short or extended in the fifth Test, which starts on Monday.
The word is that he will hang on simply because there is no alternative, given the equally woeful form and downbeat demeanour of his understudy, Michael Clarke. That describes the mayhem within the Australian camp.
England, on the other hand, have only the sun-blessed uplands to gaze upon. There are no selection issues, no niggles, no foreboding.
They took the fourth Test by an innings and 157 runs to win the Ashes in Australia for the first time since Mike Gatting's team did so in 1987. Thereafter, England have scrapped for isolated victories, memorably at home five years ago and less dramatically in 2009.
All that has changed. They lead 2-1 here and they want to finish it off, 3-1. "It would be a damp squib if we didn't go on and win in Sydney," Strauss said, reflecting not only the new buoyancy of the England team but the diminution of the Australians. If England were to win a third Test, it would still be in the shadow of Mike Brearley's visit in 1979, when England beat a depleted side 5-1.
These Australians have not sunk that low, but they no longer inspire trepidation. There is even a feeling abroad bordering on pity, so ruthlessly have their weaknesses been exposed. If they prove their detractors and doubters wrong in the final Test in Sydney, which gives Australia the chance to level the scores but not take back the urn, it will more than likely be through English complacency rather than Australian vibrancy.
After enduring personal hell in the fourth Test, to go with three miserable Tests beforehand, Ponting is virtually begging for his job, the cracked little finger on his left hand no bigger an encumbrance than his reduced standing.
"As a player and a captain," Ponting said, "I still think I've got a lot to offer the Australian team, but I've got to sit down and think about that. I've got to make the decision that I feel is right for Australian cricket."
Yet the tough Tasmanian, 36 and vulnerable after averaging a meagre 16 so far in this series, knows that his team, as much as it can be regarded as such, has been shredded to a collection of demoralised individuals, old lags and young pups, certain neither of their own future nor the strategy that weakly binds them.
They are bedevilled by a lack of leadership at the very top, as players are picked in hope rather than expectation. Ponting, true to his character, continues to speak defiantly of levelling the series 2-2, although those prepared to believe him are dwindling in number and conviction by the day. After two decades of dominance, Australian cricket is staring into a bleak, dark space.
England retained the Ashes through the application of a disciplined and intelligent plan, qualities sorely missing in their opponents not just in this match but in all but one of the other three. Australia's victory in Perth last week is seen in retrospect as the last gasp of the remnants of a once-great side.
If there has been one virtue above all others that has driven England over the past six weeks, it has surely been the unfashionable one of patience, in technique and spirit. Contrary to all modern impulses, that is the way the highest form of the game is still best played.
Australia selected untried players wholly unsuited to the rigours of the five-day game, Talented shot-makers among them, such as Phillip Hughes and Steve Smith, sparkled fleetingly, much as they have done in the popular short-form of the game, before fizzling to earth like spent firecrackers.
Even in their doomed final stand here, they went out in a fit of gestures, the admirable fast bowler Peter Siddle and the wicketkeeper Brad Haddin throwing the bat at everything with the sort of nothing-to-lose freedom gifted to tailenders who have been badly let down by more able colleagues.
Grit once was a given. But, in a game whose historical verities are threatened by the demands for instant and quick entertainment, only the gnarled Michael Hussey proved England's equal.
When Strauss and his players went to the boundary ropes just before the redundant final lunch break to bathe in the applause of the Barmy Army, they knew they had mastered not only their hosts but the art of waiting.
"The Barmy Army have been outstanding in this game," Strauss said. "They have lit up the MCG. They are very special."
The Dunk a Pom ducking stool installed outside Gate 3 of the MCG served to oil rapport between rival supporters with an agreeably light hand for the first three days of this Test but irony was always going to give way to reality.
No more fairground levity. No more pretence at humility. No more wickets, no more runs, no more hope. The Ashes – that delightfully delicate but immensely powerful bond between two rivals of cultural commonality but ever-widening aspirations – would remain out of reach, geographically and metaphorically, for another three years.
This victory did more than take England 2-1 ahead in the five-match series. The win marked a significant shift in cricket hegemony, placing England a good way clear of Australia, ruthlessly dominant for two decades and more.
"It would be a very disappointing end if we weren't able to go on and win the series," Strauss said, "but we want to be No 1 in the world. That's our aim now."That is how far England have come in six weeks – and how far Australia have fallen.
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