The Ashes - Chris Waters: Crane needs to forget about false starts as England suffer in Sydney

First of all, he cannot be absolutely certain that the bowler is going to deliver the ball, for Crane has a habit of aborting his run-up.

“If something doesn’t feel quite right when I’m running in, the ball doesn’t feel quite right or one of the steps I take, I try and stop myself rather than bowl a ball I know wouldn’t be as good as I can give,” he explained.

As England wilted on the hottest day in Sydney since 1939, with the temperature reaching 47 degrees, Crane’s Test debut continued as a baptism of fire in more ways than one.

When Australia pulled out themselves on 649-7 in the afternoon session, they held a first innings lead of 303, England ending day four on 93-4 in their second innings as they melt towards a 4-0 defeat.

Crane emerged from the towering inferno that has been England’s Ashes campaign with figures of 1-193 from 48 overs, the most conceded by an England bowler on debut.

As ever, reminders came from left, right and centre that the great Shane Warne conceded 1-150 from 45 overs on his debut against India at the same ground in 1992, as if Crane was merely following a statistical rite of passage.

It is not Warne of whom Crane puts one in mind, of course, but Warne’s former Australia team-mate Stuart MacGill.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Crane’s respect for MacGill could not be more obvious, for his action is so similar to Warne’s leg-spinning partner that it is as though our television screens have turned into time machines.

It is also MacGill, according to the former England off-spinner Graeme Swann, who has encouraged Crane in his habit of withdrawing before the point of release if something does not feel quite right as he comes into bowl.

MacGill has spent much time coaching the 20-year-old – clearly to good effect on the evidence of Crane’s largely promising performance overall – and there are similarities in the cerebral, combative approach that underpinned MacGill’s own method.

Crane’s habit of aborting his run-up, however, has certainly riled the Sydney crowd, who have howled and jeered into their ice-creams as surely as if they were watching Harold Larwood in 1933.

However, Swann, who presented Crane with his cap prior to the match, leapt to the young man’s defence, saying: “Stuart MacGill, who is a very strong character, has told him, ‘If it don’t feel right, don’t bowl it.”

Swann went on: “I’d much rather him (Crane) pull out and not bowl than bowl a beamer or a triple bouncer or something.

“That would be the end of him. Stop, and don’t care what the crowd are saying.”