The crack for four from Zak Crawley's bat that opened the previous Ashes took on almost mythical status, as if the elixir to England's eternal batting woes in Australia.
A snapshot of how, despite damning statistical evidence to the contrary, he was made for this particular tour.
The dreamy stride into the ball, those fast hands, and that aesthetically-pleasing whisk of the blade that hurtled the delivery from Pat Cummins to the extra cover boundary has remained at the heart of England's infatuation with one of the most enigmatic players in their history.
It is his worth to the England Test team in microcosm: an ability to take down Australia's best bowlers.
Other episodes linger in the memory too: the truly epic hundred at Old Trafford later in that summer of 2023, an innings of 189 off 182 balls, and the 77 he made on recall during the 2021-22 Ashes.
It has been an anomaly that Crawley has fared better against Test cricket's No 1-ranked team than lesser ones, and although he top scored on the tour of India in early 2024 and then contributed to a huge second-innings opening stand in victory over the Indians in Leeds five months ago - the plunge into mediocrity always tends to be lurking round the corner.
When New Zealand's Matt Henry tormented him 12 months ago, dismissing him six times out of six for a tally of 52 runs, the focus of management conversations on Crawley's contributions was not what he had done in real-time but what he was capable of in future.
England's selectors have persisted with him, trusting him to blossom in their biggest series. An extension once again of that one perfect stroke - easily recallable because of its heavy meme usage - masking his flaws.
England's supporters will be hoping they are proved right, of course, given the magnitude of what is a stake this winter, but with his pair at the Perth Stadium - in which he failed to make the second over in either innings - contributing to a quickfire eight-wicket defeat, his record at world level is naturally back under scrutiny.
One of the rudiments of this England set-up under McCullum has been 'keeping this group really tight.' He is a coach that regularly promotes the notion of one game too many for a player trumping one too few, but the fear is that a close unit becomes a closed shop.
The two-day defeat by Australia was Crawley's 60th Test and no England top-six player to have lasted as long can match his ratio of a nought every five appearances.
Jonny Bairstow, the player closest to him this century with 14 in 73, can at least offset his blobs with a clutch of memorable game-changing contributions. Contrast that to neither of Crawley's man-of-the-match awards coming in winning causes.
With five, Crawley also has the lowest number of hundreds amongst the 35 frontline English Test batsmen to have won at least 60 caps. Ollie Pope, who has made one extra appearance, has nine to his name.
And yet it was Pope - who also possesses an average superior by four-and-a-half runs and held the position of vice-captain at the time - that came under pressure for his place when Jacob Bethell's half-century spree in New Zealand provided England with a selection headache at the start of the 2025 summer.
Bethell was sat on the sidelines during the 2-2 series draw with India when Michael Vaughan dubbed Crawley 'the luckiest England player of all time'.
The 22-year-old opened during his schoolboy days and must surely be considered for a recall if Crawley fails again in next week's second Test in Brisbane. Such has been the level of loyalty, however, that it would not surprise if the status quo was maintained even then.
England are fixated with the Duckett-Crawley combination: left-hand, right-hand, little and large, disrupting opposition bowlers' lines and lengths. Like Bethell, the next cab from the England Lions rank, the 6ft 7ins Ben McKinney, is left-handed.
Ashes series tend to either make or finish careers, and the challenge as he approaches his 28th birthday is to alter the perception that he is no better a player than the one who made his international debut six years ago.
A start would be to end his repetitive mode of dismissal, prodding away from his body. He rarely gets out pulling, partly because he has a strong back-foot game but also that opponents don't veer away from probing off-stump just shy of a good length, awaiting an error.
Against India last summer, it led to a handful of dismissals and a couple of front-foot gropes at Mitchell Starc over the weekend have debunked the theory that he is better suited to bouncy pitches and high pace.
Bazball has largely been founded on gambles, and with its legacy set to be defined by this series, time is running out for Crawley to prove he has not been a bad one.
