Watching Jofra Archer steam in from the Pavilion End you can almost see history being written with each bowl.
You can see it in the blistering pace. You can see it in his demeanour, the intent to make the batsmen play; to make them swerve and duck and shield, or to risk being hit.
Steve Smith got hit, and now he’s likely out for the next Test, the biggest blow that the Australians could possibly imagine heading into Leeds. His replacement, the young Marcus Lambuschagne, got smacked in the grill on the second ball he faced from Archer.
In the same session, Archer took the scalps of David Warner, Usman Khawaja and the Aussie skipper Tim Paine. All the while bowling at scintillating speed and keeping his economy to a team-best 2.13 runs per over.
After the first test, the English bowling attack looked flat, it lacked teeth. Archer has given them some bite.
“Jofra has come in and made a massive impact and given Australia something different to think about,” said England captain Joe Root.
“He makes things happen, when not many others in world cricket can. It is an exciting prospect going into the rest of the series. It makes for a very interesting last three games.”
Tim Paine, tempered the hype around Archer’s exciting entrance, claiming the pitch to be “a little two-paced,” at times.
That said, he couldn’t deny the debutant had brought a new element to the series.
"He gets steep bounce… It was very difficult to decide whether to pull or duck because you might duck some (and) they didn’t get up, or you’d try and stand up and pull, and it took off," Paine added.
Some media commentary around the series suggests Archer could have the same effect on the current Ashes as Mitchell Johnson did in series past.
Johnson, of course, devastated Alastair Cook’s England to the tune of 37 wickets in the 2014 Ashes in Australia.
Johnson had the moustache; Archer has the Cuban links. Watching Archer’s long-form roll down the slope at Lords, it isn’t that hard to imagine what he could do to this series.
