But just in case they do, Joe Root need only to pin up a picture on their dressing room wall of Australia captain Steve Smith laughing like a drain at their misfortune in Brisbane last Monday.

If one snapshot summed up a moment and a balance of power perfectly that was it, with England reeling after a 10-wicket defeat and the fallout from Jonny Bairstow’s head-butt night in Perth. The Aussies were loving every minute.

England captain Root and his senior players have been simmering all week on that image and the way Australia used a four-week old head-butting story to their advantage. Now they are gunning for revenge under lights.

“If that is not motivation to the players I don’t know what is – seriously,” said Root. “I don’t think we respond in kind, that’s not how we roll, how we operate as a team. But when you see that at the end of the game you are obviously very disappointed at a reaction like that in a press conference.

“If that can’t get you up for the next game then I don’t know what can.”

Root insisted he has no doubts about the “character” in the England dressing room and has admitted there have been talks this week about how much the Australian’s antics on and off the pitch in Brisbane wound them up.

Yet Australia’s niggling on-field behaviour, dragging Bairstow’s Perth incident (the England batsman was unsettled about how seriously the Australians were prepared to take the allegations) and ensuring the stump mic feed was not missed off the field fits a well-established pattern.

“I think it’s something you expect when you come here now,” said Root. “You look at ‘Faf-gate’ last year [when South Africa captain Faf du Plessis was hounded and eventually fined over ball tampering charge] and there were comments last time we were here as well with Trotty.

“It’s part of touring Australia now I think. It’s a strategy they use,” said Root, who insisted he will not ask his side to match them for lip on the field.

“It’s very important we continue to play this tour in the manner that we have gone about it so far and that we don’t get involved in petty disputes and arguments that are nothing to do with cricket.” Despite the talk of sledging and animosity England remain convinced from a cricket point of view there were but fine lines between the two sides at the Gabba.

At the debrief meeting in Adelaide this week, management told players ‘good two and a half hour periods’ needed to be turned into full days of cricket, that they missed a golden chance to post 400 plus in the first innings, and that they were not clinical with the ball when they had them seven down.

England are sweating on Moeen Ali who is struggling with a cut spinning finger and chose not to bowl in the nets two days out from the start of the Test.

Mason Crane will be on standby should Moeen not be able to perform effectively with the ball with the latter deployed as a batter and Jake Ball dropped.

Aside from those worries, this day-night Test, with a pink ball under lights, gives England a better chance of finding the lateral movement that unsettles Australian batsmen, even those as good as Smith and that is something that fills Root with hope.

“You saw at Brisbane as soon as the ball did do anything sideways, we were massively in the game,” he said. 

“That is going to be our big focus moving forward, really being ruthless as a bowling unit at getting the ball moving laterally and finding different skills individually which are going to get stuff out of the wicket when it is slightly flatter.

“If we can do that I have full confidence we will bowl them out cheaply on a number of occasions on this tour.”

England need planets to align here including winning the toss and piling on a decent score which will load the pressure back on Australia.

There were hopeful portents from the squad golf day at Kooyonga in Adelaide on Wednesday where Alastair Cook, who has struggled to hit top gear on tour so far, landed a hole in one.

If anyone doubted his luck was turning the former captain was excused a massive round of drinks on account of the fact the squad are not touching a drop before the biggest match of the tour.