INDIANAPOLIS — One of the most unique racing events in the United States takes place this weekend in Indianapolis.

Not the Big Machine Vodka 400 for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but the 43rd edition of the World Figure 8 Championship at the Indianapolis Speedrome.

Run annually since 1977, the World Figure 8 Championship features cars battling for supremacy on a Figure-8 track inside the Speedrome’s fifth-mile asphalt oval. The winner will earn a whopping $20,000 payday.

The race features limited rules that encourage ingenuity and take up less than half a sheet of paper to explain. The format includes a round of qualifying on Friday night with the top-10 fastest cars locking into the field. The remaining cars move on to qualifying races, with the top-five finishers in each qualifying race locking into Saturday’s 3-hour main event.

On Saturday those who locked into the feature through the qualifying race will hit the track again, this time to determine their starting positions in Saturday’ feature. After the locked-in cars run their time trial laps, those who have not yet locked into the field will make their attempts, with the starting field featuring 28 cars.

However, there is a twist.

The fastest 28 cars take the green flag, but the entire field of cars that attempted to qualify could be running at any given time based on the unique Speedrome rules, which allow the slower qualifiers to join the field at given points throughout the night. If a car from the original field of 28 pulls off the track, the next fastest car that didn’t qualify on time will be allowed to enter the race.

That means a car that didn’t start the race, but joined the field later, could in theory win the race. With starters that pull off also allowed to return to the race, it means more than 28 cars could be running at one time.

The race itself is a timed event, with competitors making as many laps as possible during a 3-hour period. Competitors will cross the figure-8 intersection two times per lap, with laps times typically falling in the 16 second range.

That means that if the race runs for 500 laps during the 3-hour time window, competitors would cross the intersection 1,000 times. That’s 1,000 opportunities for disaster.

Mark Tunny is the defending winner of the World Figure 8 Championship. The Tunny family has won the World Figure 8 Championship an astounding nine times with five different family members, including Ben Tunny (three victories), Bruce Tunny (two victories), Mark Tunny (two victories), Austin Tunny (one victory) and Bill Tunny Jr. (one victory).

Jack Dossey Jr., the father of JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour champion Jack Dossey III, is the all-time winningest driver in World Figure 8 Championship history with six victories.

The event is being broadcast by Low Budget TV, part of the SPEED SPORT Network. Click here to watch the race live on Saturday night or check out highlights from the 2018 edition of the race below.

BELGRADE, Mont. – With Mother Nature throwing a slider on the field en-route to Gallatin Speedway for the season finale, the championship chase will come to a close with Jeremy McCune claiming his first title with the Brodix ASCS Frontier Region.

The Montana racer ends the season with a 69-point margin over his son, Damon McCune. Show position goes to Robert DeHaan with Mindy McCune and Shad Petersen making up the top five in series standings.

“This is awesome but bittersweet. We had Jimmy Jones come up about half-way through the season and go over our cars and get us pointed in the right directions and that made all the difference. Really would have liked to have raced our way to the Championship, especially with my Son being in second, but for everything this team has gone through over the past three years, this is more than I could have hoped for. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me. It means more than most will ever know,” said McCune of his season.

With the championship, Jeremy McCune is the fifth driver to stop the Brodix ASCS Frontier Region. Other champions include Phil Dietz (2013 and 2015), David Hoiness (2017 and 2018), Skylar Gee (2016) and Joe Ramaker (2014).

Over the course of the season, McCune scored one win, six top fives, and seven top tens through 10 feature starts. With the lashing that Mother Nature put on the lineup of events, 11 events out of 19 were contested.

INDIANAPOLIS — This could be the final time NASCAR has back-to-back races at two of the world’s most historic tracks.

After racing last weekend at stock car racing’s most historic facility — Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, the sanctioning body’s Xfinity Series and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will visit Indianapolis Motor Speedway, arguably the most prestigious track in the world.

Next year, the Brickyard 400 weekend at the 2.5-mile oval moves to Fourth of July weekend, separating it from Darlington’s Southern 500 weekend.

“I feel like in NASCAR we are extremely lucky to have so many internationally recognized, marquee race tracks,” said Justin Allgaier, who drives for JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series. “Obviously, Indianapolis Motor Speedway is the world’s most historic speedway, if not one of the two or three most famous tracks. I look at Monaco as being as historical and Le Mans being similar, but all different styles of being historic.

“This place has so much history, though.”

Allgaier believes it’s more than the track that makes it historic; it’s about the fans.

“There are a lot of fans here that are Indianapolis Motor Speedway fans,” Allgaier explained. “They could care less what is on track; they are Indianapolis Motor Speedway fans and that is pretty special.

“Then at Darlington, to have the throwback weekend. I believe Darlington’s culture embodies what NASCAR is all about,” Allgaier added. “Last week, I ran through the infield on Friday night and ran through the infield and outside, just to see the fans that were hanging out.

“It was really special to have that weekend.”

Allgaier, who won last year’s Indiana 250 NASCAR Xfinity Series race, believes the past two years that the Darlington and Indianapolis races came back to back was something special.

“This is the last opportunity to have these two races back to back and it will change it a lot,” Allgaier said. “I’m OK with the weather this week. I don’t know what the weather will be like when we return on July 4, but I like the weather this week.”

Allgaier was also referring to last year’s horrible weather that included three days of rain and washed away all track activity on Friday through Sunday, forcing both the Xfinity Series and Cup Series to race on Monday.

Allgaier started second and led 41 laps en route to winning the 100-lap Xfinity Series race.

“To say that we’ve won at Indianapolis, that’s really special and that means a lot,” Allgaier said. “I came back here last winter for the PRI Show and I walked into the Pagoda at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a seminar and that was a really surreal feeling.

“It was very special.”

Allgaier is winless this season, but ranks fourth in the standings, with the playoff cutoff looming next week at Richmond (Va.) Raceway.

“Our speed is way better than it has been the last few months,” Allgaier said. “We started off the season and weren’t as fast as the top three. We are now as good, if not better, than they are.

“We just need that racing luck to go our way. Then, we can challenge for the championship and challenge to win races. We need to find that little extra bit that we need and then we’ll be pretty good.”

A great way to spark a championship run would be a second Indianapolis victory.

“If we could win again at Indy, it would be even bigger from the fact that nobody had any practice last year, we got in and started the race,” Allgaier recalled. The whole weekend was weird, but I do feel like it would be awesome to go to victory lane and do it the normal way (instead of a Monday).

“That would be a lot more fun.”

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Carolina Hurricanes have signed defenseman Jake Gardiner to a four-year contract.

Under terms of the deal announced Friday by Carolina general manager Don Waddell, Gardiner will make an average of $4.05 million each season.

"He's a great player. He's a great skater," Carolina defenseman Jaccob Slavin said. "He's really solid at running the power play. That's a great addition for our team. I think our blue line definitely just got stronger."

The 29-year-old Gardiner had three goals and 27 assists while playing 62 regular-season games with Toronto last season, then added two assists in seven playoff games. He has 45 goals and 200 assists during his eight-year NHL career.

"I didn't really expect it to go this long, but in the end I think it worked out really well" for Gardiner, former Toronto teammate Auston Matthews said. "He's going to a good organization, a good situation for him. I'm extremely happy for him."

Waddell says Gardiner is "a solid veteran blueliner with a proven history of contributing offensively."

This marks the second straight offseason the Hurricanes gave a four-year deal to a free-agent defenseman. Calvin de Haan signed one a year ago, but was traded to Chicago in June.

The Carolina Hurricanes made some news Friday, inking veteran defenseman Jake Gardiner to a four-year contract, with Canes GM Don Waddell calling Gardiner "a solid veteran blueliner with a proven history of contributing offensively."

But does the deal make sense for the Canes, in the context of everything else that happened this summer? Let's get to the grade:

The player: Jake Gardiner, 29, D

The terms: 4 years, $4.05 million average annual value

Does the deal make sense?

A late goal from substitute Donyell Malen handed Netherlands a massive 4-2 win over Germany in their Group C 2020 Euro qualifier in Hamburg on Friday.

The Germans set out in search of their second win in a row against Netherlands following a last-gasp 3-2 win in the first group meeting between the teams in March and were in front inside of 10 minutes.

Some poor defending gifted Serge Gnabry a close-range goal from a Lukas Klostermann rebound after the RB Leipzig player had got in behind the Dutch defence on a counter-attack.

Netherlands had the better of the first-half possesion, but Germany looked more likely to score with Jasper Cillessen making a fine save on a Marco Reus shot just before half-time to keep the score 1-0 at the break.

"I told my players [at half-time] to stay in the game, not to give them so much space, control the ball better," Koeman told reporters. "That we should just keep going and we would get our chances. In the second half the Germans looked more tired and we benefited from that.

"Overall we worked harder than Germany for this victory."

The Dutch looked more threatening to start the second half and were soon level when Frenkie de Jong made a perfect first touch on a Ryan Babel cross and buried his shot past Manuel Neuer with his second to make it 1-1.

Minutes later Netherlands took the lead from a corner kick after Neuer saved a towering header from Virgil van Dijk with the rebound falling to Memphis Depay whose short cross from the near post was redirected into the goal by Germany defender Jonathan Tah.

A controversial De Jong handball gave Germany their chance to equalise from the spot and Toni Kroos sent Cillessen the wrong way with his penalty to even the score at two apiece.

Ten minutes before full-time, a Germany giveaway allowed Georginio Wijnaldum to sneak into the box and sneak a deft chip to Malen, who finished with aplomb past Neuer.

Wijnaldum put the result beyond doubt soon after, finishing off a swift counter-attack with a first-time finish from Memphis' whipped in cross to the travelling supports' delight.

"We played below our skill level and abilities," Germany manager Joachim Low told reporters. "The Dutch were the better team and we deserved to lose. We went ahead but I never had the feeling that we were in control of the game.

"The Dutch kept pressing and then we ended up playing high balls. That is not how we had planned to play. We will now need to analyse this game and draw our conclusions,"

The match was further proof of Germany's defensive issues as they conceded four goals in a match for the first time since a 2014 friendly vs Argentina. The last time it happened in a competitive match prior to the loss to Netherlands was in 2012 vs Sweden in a World Cup qualifier.

The result leaves Germany on nine points from four games, three behind leaders Northern Ireland, who they face on Monday in Belfast. The Dutch move up to six points from three games.

India batsman Dinesh Karthik has been issued a notice by the BCCI for violating the guidelines of his central contract. Karthik was spotted in the Trinbago Knight Riders dressing room during the inaugural match of the Caribbean Premier League 2019 on Thursday. As per the BCCI player contract, players are not allowed to participate in or be present at any other sporting activity or sport without prior permission from the board.

It is understood that Karthik was issued the notice, signed by BCCI chief executive officer Rahul Johri, on Friday and has been given a week to respond. It is understood the three-person Committee of Administrators will adjudicate on the matter once Karthik's response comes in.

Karthik captains Kolkata Knight Riders, the IPL franchise that shares owners with Trinbago Knight Riders. He was shown on live broadcast during the match in a Trinbago Knight Riders jersey, seated next to coach Brendon McCullum, and personal mentor Abhishek Nayar, who is also on the coaching staff of Knight Riders in the IPL. McCullum was also recently handed charge of Knight Riders for the next IPL season.

Karthik, 34, was last seen playing for India at the World Cup in England, as a specialist batsman in their semi-final loss to New Zealand. Since then, Karthik has been dropped from the ODI and T20I squads and turned up in one Tamil Nadu Premier League match. He was, however, appointed captain of Tamil Nadu for the Vijay Hazare Trophy which is set to begin from September 24.

It has been a far from ideal year for Karthik, who led Knight Riders with some success last IPL while also bringing himself strongly back into national team reckoning. However, the multiple IPL winners couldn't replicate the performance in 2019. Apart from a dip in scoring, Karthik had to deal with off-field issues too. In the second half of the tournament amid a string of losses, he copped what looked like public criticism from his star player Andre Russell, who suggested he was willing to bat higher up the order days after Karthik had told the press there had been no complaints from the allrounder about his batting position.

For a while it looked as though Australia were still haunted by Headingley. In their first stint in the field since Ben Stokes tore them apart, a raucous Old Trafford crowd made a point of ironically cheering every time Nathan Lyon caught a return from his fielders. The first of two extended sessions in the field, with the benefit of a mammoth 497 to defend, was by some distance the tourists' worst of the series.

So many of the fundamentals of the Australian team blueprint for this series, mapped out by the coach Justin Langer, his assistants Graeme Hick, Brad Haddin and analyst Dene Hills, then enacted by the captain Tim Paine, were conspicuously missing. Pressure was not maintained, boundaries flowed and for a time Rory Burns and Joe Root were able to bat in circumstances that for a rare occasion across four Tests did not suggest they were fighting for their very lives.

Not unlike England, much of Australia's selection and approach for Manchester had been informed by the expectation that this would be a faster, more lively surface than the slow seamers offered up thus far. So it was that Mitchell Starc came into the team, having done plenty of remedial work on his lines and lengths in the Worcester and Derby tour matches, with the hope that his speed would be impactful on what is reputed to be the most slippery pitch in England.

Instead, Starc struggled to get things right, failing to make the batsmen play enough on the second evening then giving away too many runs on the third afternoon. His trial with a red ball in his hand, familiar to those those who watch Australia regularly, duly left far more responsibility in the hands of Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, alongside Lyon, who was conscripted into a long holding spell at the opposite end to the quicks even though he was not exactly bowling at his best or tightest.

Fortunately for the Australian selectors, Cummins and Hazlewood were able to adjust from some of their earlier missteps, conjuring a couple of their best and most effective spells of the entire series. Cummins was not rewarded for his, but when Hazlewood followed up immediately with a burst that was little less hostile and even more accurate, England's top order dam burst in the final hour of play, losing three critical wickets and leaving it all to Stokes yet again.

Initially, Cummins had seemed far too preoccupied with bowling short at Burns, given the problems against the short ball that the England opener had exhibited in the first three Tests. But those dismissals had been allied to plenty of bowling on a good length, testing the outside edge, leaving Burns not entirely sure what was coming down at him. Here, he was able to make an early decision to evade short balls that arrived too frequently, and while he did not score from them, they did not look likely to get him out.

Only after tea, perhaps benefitting from some time in the dressing room to discuss their approach, did Cummins and Hazlewood rebalance things. Cummins concentrated far more on a line and length threatening the stumps, interspersing this with bouncers to drive Burns back. In common with his bowling to Root, Cummins was able to revert to the methods that had been so successful in the first three Tests, from a point near tea where a mere 13 of Australia's deliveries by pacemen had been going on to hit the stumps.

"I think as a general rule we probably did bowl a touch short in that first session and targeted the top of the stumps in the second session" Hazlewood said. "I think with bowling a lot of short balls to Rory Burns you can probably get into a bad habit as well. Definitely to the right handers I feel in the game if it's that top-of-stumps height, getting lbws and bowleds. Maybe something to look at for tomorrow.

"We had a couple of near misses here and there, Patty in that spell created a few genuine chances and half chances as well. Once you can get one and break a partnership you can get two and three pretty quickly. I thought it was really good the way Gaz [Lyon] bowled down that one end and we could come from the other, all the quicks. He was fantastic down there keeping the runs quite dry and towards the end as he kept bowling he looked more in the game."

Cummins' duel with Root was a mouthwatering one for spectators and followed a particularly eye-watering moment for Root. First, he had his box shattered by a Starc ball that angled sharply into him, needing plenty of medical attention and a replacement piece of protective gear. Next, he was struck a heavy blow on the back leg by Cummins. These moments took place either side of an edge, procured from a fast, full Cummins delivery that moved away just enough as Root tried a straight drive. It should have been a diving chance for Paine, but both he and first slip David Warner remained statuesque.

That missed chance was followed by an lbw review for the ball that struck Root on the back leg, the ball always outside the line of the off stump, both at the point of impact and the projection for missing the wicket. Australian frustration was growing, but fortunately for Paine, he had a refreshed Hazlewood ready to power in behind Cummins, as Lyon continued in support.

Root had suggested, too, that a three-man pace attack was key to the equation, for Australia have lots of fast bowlers in their squad but only half their number in the actual team. And the inclusion of Starc ahead of the more economical and into-the-wind Peter Siddle, meant that both Cummins and Hazlewood were likely to be pressed into longer service.

Whether three or four pacemen, they still had to be seen off, and Hazlewood's radar was back to its most precise at exactly the right moment. Burns was forced to play a ball around off stump that seamed away, skewing an edge into the hands of Steven Smith at second slip. Root was pinned lbw by a ball that was full, fast and moving back towards middle and off stump. Then lastly Jason Roy's move down to No. 4 - or No. 5 in this case behind nightwatchman Craig Overton - was not low enough to prevent him from having to face a moving ball.

Similar in length and direction to the delivery that had done for Root, it reaped for Hazlewood the gratifying sight of Roy's middle stump being knocked flat behind him, capping a spell of 3 for 15 in 27 laser-guided balls. Something that England have so far had to contend with is the fact that while Australia's batsmen have been able to wait out English spells in the confident hope that things will get easier, this has seldom been the case with the touring attack. Hazlewood noted that with six pacemen on tour, it was somewhat easier to attack with a "no tomorrow" mindset.

"It doesn't really come into my mind at all, probably due to the fact we've got three class quicks on the bench as well," he said. "Most guys have had a hit out now apart from Michael Neser. One thing Peter Siddle brought up at the start of the series is just focus on the game at hand, give everything for this game because we know we've got great back-up in the sheds. We'll be thinking about this game and after this one we'll worry about the next one."

There was plenty of praise for Cummins, who had done so much of the initial hard work to pull things back after Australia had looked momentarily caught in a Headingley feedback loop. "Patty rarely bowls a bad spell, he was fantastic there in the evening session," Hazlewood said. "He could have had a catch that went between the keeper and first slip and is always at the batsmen. Front foot, back foot, he just gets better every time he bowls. It's good to have him in your team.

"He's a machine really. Had all that bad luck with injury through his late teens, early 20s and he's come out the other side. He's always been a great athlete, it was just a matter of time before that body hardened up and his bones hardened up. As a power and strength athlete he's fantastic and he's got great endurance as well. He's pretty much the all-round package. It's quite disheartening as well sometimes to watch him run in all day, just such a great athlete and hopefully it continues for him."

By stumps, when bad light brought a close to proceedings ahead of schedule, Lyon was still holding up an end, but the mocking chants had died down. Stokes, of course, was still at the crease, leaving some memory of Leeds lingering. But in rediscovering their abiding blueprint in the final session, Australia took one step closer to the Ashes - and 15 more English wickets in two days will get them there.

England 200 for 5 (Stokes 7*, Bairstow 2*) trail Australia 497 for 8 (Smith 211, Labuschagne 67) by 297 runs

Strap yourselves back in. After an atypically fallow period on the third afternoon at Old Trafford, the 2019 Ashes rollercoaster is primed for another nail-biting weekend, thanks to a brilliant late intervention from Josh Hazlewood that has reignited Australia's quest for their first series win in England since 2001.

By the close of another rain-shortened day, the discipline and endurance shown by Joe Root and Rory Burns in the course of their four-hour stand of 141 was fading as fast as the bad light that eventually spared England any further examination. They limped to the close on 200 for 5, still 98 runs shy of saving the follow-on - or, more realistically, still two batting sessions shy of ensuring Australia run out of time to turn the screw in the fourth innings.

England have learned far too much about their batting frailties in recent times to start counting any chickens at any stage of any innings. And yet, while Root and Burns were in harness, blunting Australia's ever-ripe seamers with judicious shot selection in a four-hour stand of 141, while seeing off the threat of a sharp-turning Nathan Lyon too, they did appear to have begun to learn from those frailties as well.

But then, just as some signs of the raggedness that had undermined England's efforts in the field were beginning to afflict the Australians, their depth of seam quality shone through at the last. Both set batsmen were blasted from the crease in quick and undignified succession, with the hapless Jason Roy following meekly soon afterwards, as Hazlewood combined the merest hint of reverse swing with his natural edge-threatening discipline to produce an unanswerable burst of 3 for 17 in 4.5 overs.

First to go was Burns, whose 81 from 185 balls was arguably his finest innings of the series to date - he had certainly required more luck in the course of his Edgbaston century, as this time he proved equal to Australia's short-ball approach, judging the length early and swaying late when needs be, to eat up deliveries with a voracity that no other opener in this series has come close to replicating. Indeed, in the course of his innings, he became both the first non-Alastair Cook England opener to face 700 balls in an Ashes series since Root (remember him?) in 2013, and the first England opener of any type to score three fifties in a series since Cook against Pakistan in 2016.

But in the end, Hazlewood proved simply too good - ripping the ball off Burns' edge as he cramped him for room from over the wicket, for Steve Smith to cling on low at second slip. And one over later, Root was gone as well - pinned on the crease by a delivery so full and straight that he could barely bring himself to look at umpire Dharmasena as the finger went up, let alone burn a review.

Root's innings of 71, hot on the heels of his 77 at Headingley, was - tellingly - his first back-to-back Test fifty since the 2017-18 Ashes, a fact which doubtless mitigated his disappointment at once again failing to convert a start. It's been a while, after all, since he has had anything to convert at all.

The main feature of his innings was his balance against the quicks, particularly after his judgement of his off stump had come through a stern and sustained test against Hazlewood in the morning session. Against Lyon's fizzing turn he was less sure-footed, however - perhaps mindful of his rash dismissal at Headingley when he had been caught on the charge early on the fourth day.

And yet he endured, and briefly appeared to have run into the sort of good fortune that has deserted him in recent innings, when he edged Pat Cummins through the gap between keeper and first slip, moments after bringing up his fifty with a chop through point for four. He took his blows too - an eye-watering crack amidships from Mitchell Starc that broke his box in two, and a painful blow on the knee, in the course of a wasteful review for lbw, that required lengthy treatment.

But then, just as Root was trying to refocus after the loss of Burns, Hazlewood proved too good for him too, and England's anxieties were writ large across the final hour. And, having started the day with the third-ball extraction of the nightwatchman, Craig Overton - Hazlewood mirrored that achievement by blowing away Roy with what proved to his third-from-last ball of the day.

The cocksure dominance with which Roy had carried England's World Cup campaign was nowhere to be seen in another skittish display. Having been spared the new ball on the first evening following Joe Denly's sacrificial promotion, Roy ought in theory to have been more at home with the shine long gone in the 64th over. But instead he began with ten agonisingly blotted dot-balls, followed by a spring-loaded cover drive for four that begged more questions than it answered.

And sure enough, it wasn't long before his stay was executed, Hazlewood scorching an inducker through another hard-handed, aggressive block-drive that plucked out his middle stump with his feet and hands in different postcodes. If, somewhere beneath the misjudgements, Roy still retains the technique for Test cricket, as many fine judges insist, then right now it seems his mental game is shot, no matter where in the order England hide him. And that is just one of many reasons why England really, really need to avoid having to bat again for any length of time in this contest.

And, so, once again, England's Ashes hopes would appear to be back in the hands of a familiar character. Ben Stokes arrived at the crease to the most raucous ovation of the day, and duly survived a low edge into the cordon at the start of a sustained examination from Lyon, whose wickets have dried up since Lord's but whose threat remains very clear and present.

Stokes, however, managed to grind to the close on 7 not out, with Jonny Bairstow - the unsung catalyst of the Headingley miracle - alongside him once again on 2, and their objective when play resumes will be clear as it was at the start of the third day. Full-blown heroics can wait for another day. Dogged survival will suffice for the remainder of this game, as England hope against hope that they can keep the Ashes alive into next week's final Test.

Michael Gove may think society in general has had enough of experts but, from an England cricket perspective, they're starting to look like a pretty good idea.

By reaching 50 for the third time in the series, Rory Burns provided further evidence of the wisdom of picking specialist players for specialist positions. Already he has become just the third England opener since the retirement of Andrew Strauss to reach 50 three times in a single series - Alastair Cook and Alex Hales, who did so against Sri Lanka in 2016 are the others - with all the other openers combined making one half-century between them in the series so far.

This should not be a complete surprise. Burns has spent most of his career at the top of the order. He has scored 1,000 runs in each of the previous five domestic first-class seasons and, in the process, learned his trade well. These challenges - these surfaces, these balls - present few mysteries to him.

Bearing in mind those statistics, it's odd that it took the selectors so long to pick Burns. Instead English cricket pursued a policy of selecting aggressive openers - or even just aggressive top-order batsmen who were press-ganged into opening - with Burns picked as something of a last resort. He has shown, however, not only the wisdom of picking players who understand the specific challenges of the role, but men whose techniques might not be aesthetically pleasing but are shown to have worked.

Burns' success is built as much on mental resilience as it is on technical competence. But it's the combination of the two factors that renders him such a valuable player. For he acknowledges there will be times, especially against an attack as good as this, when he will be beaten on or outside off stump. But while some of his colleagues pushed and prodded at balls nipping away from the outside edge, Burns held the line and played with bat close to his body and under his eyes. And while some of his colleagues would become anxious and allow the pressure to build, Burns has the phlegmatic attitude of a man who accepts such indignities as part of the job. He put each delivery - whether it brought triumph or defeat - behind him and concentrated on the next one. It was an innings that would have made Cook proud.

"He knows his game well and he's committed to it" Josh Hazlewood said afterwards. "He's scored some valuable runs at the top of the order. He looks a good player."

Burns was helped by a couple of factors. Firstly, Mitchell Starc failed to maintain the impeccable control of his colleagues and allowed some release in the pressure. Burns took him for 22 in 10 deliveries at one stage - a feast by comparison to the rest of his innings - and in all hit four boundaries off him. By comparison, he managed just one off Hazlewood and none at all off the 47 deliveries he faced from Pat Cummins.

Also read: Cummins, Hazlewood in rescue tandem

The other factor that may have helped him was Australia's policy of testing him with the short ball. While the delivery had troubled him earlier in the series - he was dismissed by short balls twice in Leeds and once each at Edgbaston and Lord's - on this relatively slow surface, he had time to duck and weave his way out of trouble. And, all the while Australia were concentrating on the ploy, they were squandering the chances of dismissing via the outside edge.

But this was arguably the most assured innings of his 11-Test career. Increasingly, he looked not just as if he felt he could manage, but as if he belonged. Having struggled to combat Nathan Lyon at Edgbaston - yes, he made a century, but he would be the first to admit he enjoyed some fortune along the way - he looked comfortable against him here despite the surprising degree of turn achieved on a third-day pitch. Making no attempt to drive him, Burns instead waited for anything short. Three times he cut him for four, on another occasion he swept in front of square. As a result, Australia were forced to post a sweeper, allowing just a little less pressure around the bat and a few more holes in the field.

"It wasn't a bad ball," Burns said of the delivery that dismissed him; a fine ball that demanded a stroke before it both bounced and left him. "It was one of those when sometimes you walk off and you can be pretty at peace with yourself.

"The short ball is probably not a bad plan on a surface that wasn't offering masses in terms of seam movement. But, like Steve Smith said, you are not worrying about your off stump too much when facing bouncers. You can get under stuff and bat for long periods of time. It was a scrap and it was mentally challenging, but it was quite enjoyable."

It would be premature to envisage Burns as a captaincy alternative to Root. While he has enjoyed some experience in the role - he led Surrey to the County Championship title in 2018 - he has more to do before he can be considered an automatic selection in the long-term. This was an encouraging step forward, but he will need to score heavily for an extended period of time before he can be considered a viable alternative.

It's worth contrasting Burns' experiences at the top of the order to those of England's other openers in this series. At one stage on Thursday night, Joe Denly - the latest sacrificial offering at the top of the order was beaten by four balls in succession from Hazlewood. At another, he was struck on the shoulder by a Starc bouncer. The two balls before he was out, he was beaten on either edge by Cummins. It was a torturous innings which suggested Denly neither knew which ball to leave or play and that he did not have the compact game to ensure he did not push outsides edges to the slips. He looked, in short, like a man parachuted into the opening position.

And then there's Jason Roy. The knock-on effect of Burns' excellent third-wicket stand with Joe Root was to delay Roy's arrival at the crease until the 65th over. As a result, he came in against an older, softer ball and a bowling attack that may in theory - there was little sign of it in reality - have tired a little. And, for a while, as he laced three boundaries between backward point and extra cover, that appeared to help.

But, before too long, those technical faults came back to haunt him. Pushing at one from Hazlewood - a terrific ball that nipped in off the seam - with hands advancing ahead of his front pad, he left a hole between bat and pad. Bowlers as good as Hazlewood - and, to be fair, there aren't many better - will find those gaps and exploit them. Already you fear as if Roy's confidence - and, indeed, his Test career - may have been compromised by asking him to bat out of position. Test cricket is hard enough without having to learn a new trade on the job. Burns has shown the value of specialisation.