As the ball hung in the air, and three Australian fielders converged from various points of the compass, Harry Brook may already have been penning his apology. Up in the commentary box, Stuart Broad mouthed 'no, no, no!', before cupping his hands to his mouth in relief as the chance plopped to safety.

And if the first day of the fifth Test at the SCG was truncated by the weather and, later, the officials' mysterious refusal to countenance a restart as the skies cleared, it also lasted long enough for Brook to consider a question that has dogged him all tour: what kind of batsman, exactly, do I want to be?

On 45 at the time of his near miss, he finished the day with 78, keeping Joe Root company in what at that point was England's longest stand of the series - a low bar, admittedly, but one that simply had to be cleared against an Australian side keen for instant revenge after the two-day debacle at Melbourne.

Root's unbeaten 72 was almost entirely devoid of drama, and full of glides to third man as if this was Headingley in June. Yet the man most likely to bring about Brook's demise was not one of Australia's five seamers, but Brook himself.

In Starc's previous over, Steve Smith could not have telegraphed his intentions more clearly if he had hand-delivered them to the England dressing-room, pushing five men to the fence and instructing Australia's attack leader to bowl short - a test not just of Brook's reflexes but of his nous.

When Brook first played Test cricket, at the end of the 2022 summer, Ben Stokes joked that he wasn't the brightest, but later implied that, even if he didn't read Proust, he had a razor-sharp cricket brain. At times, even that judgment has looked questionable.

From the second ball, Brook top-edged a wild smear over the head of wicketkeeper Alex Carey, and was relieved to trot through for a single. 

In Starc's next over, Brook advanced again, this time forehand-smashing one run to long-on. Both strokes appeared to load the risk-reward ratio in Australia's favour. Yet that didn't stop Brook having another go three balls later, playing the stroke that nearly cost him his wicket on a Sydney pitch crying out for runs.

Brook survived this time, but on another occasion he won't - and the knives will be out as mercilessly as they were when he drove on the up at Perth and Brisbane, and later admitted he needed to 'rein himself in'. On days such as this, it seems fair to ask how that challenge is going.

When Root was facing Starc, Smith reverted to a conventional field, as if acknowledging that the bouncer ploy would be a waste of time and energy. In the case of Brook, by contrast, Australia's captain knew his man. But how well does Brook even know himself? His end-of-play press conference did not provide a clear answer.

'It's obviously a ploy which has been used against me in my whole career,' he said. 'I've experienced it a lot so far, and I'm expecting to experience it a lot in the future.

'I thought I'd played it alright. I could have played it better at times. It didn't feel amazing, but on another day it'll feel a hell of a lot better, so I'm just happy I got through it.'

The thought process was as frantic as the strokeplay, and the conclusion Brook drew from his duel with Starc seemed counter-intuitive: because he wasn't properly getting on top of the ball, he chose to cut his losses. And, for Brook, that meant clearing the ropes: when the expensive Cameron Green dropped short, he went with the wind and pulled him 15 rows back over long leg.

It was the stroke of a talent and a gambler, precisely the kind of cricketer venerated by head coach Brendon McCullum. And, in fairness, it is hard to argue with a Test record that has brought Brook 10 hundreds at the age of 26. This was his 25th score of 50 or more, and it has taken him 59 innings, the same as Viv Richards. Only six batsmen in Test history have got there more quickly. Are you not entertained?

Yet even as he cuts a swathe through the record books, it still feels as if Brook is wrestling with his game.

'I've just got to be a little bit more patient and take my ones here and there,' he said. 

'But it's obviously not worked this series because I haven't scored as many runs as I'd have liked. It's been frustrating, and it's not an easy place to come and tour, because the surfaces change every game, and throughout the game. But it's all part of the learning curve.'

By stumps on the first day, Australia had still not seen the best of England's vice-captain, either during the 2023 Ashes or this winter.

Yet he is far from the circus act some observers here seem to think. His unbeaten 78 took his Test average to 55.89: among 21st-century batsmen with more than his 3,130 runs, only Jacques Kallis, Kumar Sangakkara and Mohammad Yousuf have averaged more. That is serious company.

And on a day when Brook and Root had to repair the damage of another top-order wobble to 57 for three, England were grateful to possess the top two batsmen in the world rankings.

But it is hard to escape the curious sense that Brook occasionally scores runs in spite of his apparent addiction to risk, that his natural gifts could be put to even better use than they already are.

Brook's journey towards self-realisation could define the next decade of English Test cricket. For now, as the ball hangs in the air, fans are hoping for the best, and wondering what adventure next lurks round the corner.