Within the first half hour of playon Wednesday (June 28), David Warner had stood tall and physically stopped a protestor from getting near the pitch and then got down on one knee and played a paddle sweep off Stuart Broad. It's safe to say that that these were two scenes that were totally off-script for the opening chapter of the Lord's Test. Even if they weren't as bizarre as seeing Jonny Bairstow physically airliftng a young protestor off the field like he was going to powerslam him. It was that kind of a morning. It was that kind of day at the most hallowed setting in world cricket. A day where a lot of the action that played out seemed to not follow the general script of cricket at Lord's on a cloudy day.

For, when Ben Stokes won the toss and elected to field in front of a teeming crowd, all dressed in their opening day niceties, and with a blanket of gloom encompassing the entre north London sky, the day looked primed for England's bowlers to finally have a say in this series. But not only was it not to be, what we witnessed instead was an insipid collective performance with the ball that allowed Australia to dominate to such an extent that they might already feel on top in this second Test.

It all started with Warner, after he was done teaming up with Stokes (talk about tag-teams) to keep the pitch safe from the protestors. Like he's done on this tour so far, the veteran opener showed the kind of intent, both in terms of footwork and the keenness to score, that was missing four years ago.

And in conditions where the ball was hooping around, Warner managed to find a method to not only survive but also score at a brisk pace. When they went too full in search of that extra movement, he drove, and when they lost their length, he cut and he pulled. So, when he suddenly pulled out the scoop sweep off an extremely-bemused Broad who couldn't stop staring at his old nemesis with a look of "when did that become a thing in our relationship", it kind of made sense. This was Warner trying to impose himself on Broad and the other English seamers like he hasn't done in years. And he did connect with the sweep a lot more effectively a while later off an under-par Ollie Robinson.

If Warner looked like a man with a point to prove, Steve Smith looked like a man on a mission. He'd looked to have regained his prime form in the nets on the eve of the Test, and he began his innings like he does at times at training. By playing a lot of shots and looking to score right off the bat, accompanied with the many nods and hand-signals of self-approval. And once he raced to 25 off just 20 deliveries, his innings returned to the more formal Steve Smith movie script. From that point on, there was Smith essaying a classic at his end while the frenetic action continued across the pitch from him.

Marnus Labuschagne had tweaked his stance slightly going into the Lord's Test. And it seemed to work wonderfully well whenever he wanted to pick off runs and boundaries through the on-side. The slightly open-stance meant that he was in perfect positions to whip even deliveries that pitched on off-stump through mid-wicket. He, however, still couldn't get over the tendency he's had in the last 10 days to go poking at really wide deliveries and nearly got himself into trouble a few times before he even got going.

But he hung around long enough with the man he'd famously replaced as a concussion substitute on this very ground in 2019, to provide the solid base that Travis Head then needed to blast off.

If you were looking at a passage in play to sum up how uninspired the English attack looked for large parts of the day, this was it. The first 30 or so balls that Head faced on Day One were exactly the 30 balls he'd have asked the English for if given a choice. It was an insipid phase where England let Head dictate terms in conditions where the ball was still moving around appreciably.

Forget seizing moments, they barely seemed to be in a position to acknowledge them. And for as well as the South Australian dynamo batted to break the game like he does, he was allowed to do so with little opposition.

Perhaps they hadn't quite recovered from bowling 66 more overs than their counterparts in Birmingham in the first Test, despite the seven-day break that followed. Probably they might be feeling a bit taken for granted in this new era of English cricket where they barely get a chance to put their feet up. Regardless, they had no excuse to fall back on a day that seemed custom-designed for them to give their team a grand beginning. Stokes to his credit kept changing his bowlers around but there were no Bazball fields or funky setups like we saw in Birmingham.

And on a day that started off with scenes never seen at Lord's before, it was Joe Root who proved to be the best bowler of the day for the English, even if Josh Tongue did impress in brief spells. It was also Root who ensured that England finished the day with some sort of footing still in the game, despite the fact that Smith is still out there and looking hungry for a lot more.

The delivery to dismiss Head was a clever one, as Root predicted the left-hander's intention of stepping out and tossed the off-break wider than usual and had him stumped excellently by Bairstow. The wicket of Cameron Green straight after was a bonus as the young all-rounder played arguably the first poor shot of his career. The dismissal was no surprise to him as he celebrated the Head wicket with more emotion and passion than usual, pointing at his captain on the boundary and his coach on the team balcony screaming, "I told you... I told you.." But with the hosts now under pressure, they need a strong Day 2 to stay alive in the Test and also to keep the naysayers of Bazball at bay for a little while longer. For, they seem primed to start pointing fingers at this potentially era-defining English team and start shouting, "I told you... I told you..it won't work.."