The Blues goalkeeper saved Nelson Oliviera’s opening spot-kick and after a perfect display of penalties from the home side was rounded off by Eden Hazard.

Norwich did their best to earn an old-fashioned cup upset, but ultimately the game will be remembered as a kick in the teeth for new-fangled technology when referee Graham Scott ignored the video referee at his disposal to deny Chelsea two vital extra-time penalties.

Three Chelsea players were booked for simulation after tumbles in the box but while Pedro was rightly found guilty there was evidence of contact in two extra-time incidents that left Chelsea manager Antonio Conte seething.

In the first half of the additional half-hour, replays clearly showed contact between Pedro and Timm Klose but Scott chose not to look at them. Instead he decided it was a dive and gave Norwich a free kick, also producing a yellow card.

Then in the very last minute, Alvaro Morato tumbled to the ground with Christoph Zimmermann’s hand on his shoulder – another booking for simulation, compounded by a red card when he protested.

After four successive draws for Chelsea, this game eventually had to be decided on the night but ultimately the Premier League side have themselves to blame for not finishing this sooner.

The fourth allotted minute of injury time was reaching its final seconds when Chelsea bizarrely seemed to back away from their dogged Championship opponents. Klose was given too much time to swing the ball into the penalty area; Jamal Lewis too much space to angle his header perfectly inside the far upright.

Chelsea themselves had had to wait 349 minutes for a goal of any sort when Michy Batshuayi supplied one in the simplest of fashion – sidefooting Kenedy’s low cross into the roof of the Norwich net 10 minutes into the second half.

Three successive goalless draws preceding this cup replay had been put down to “tiredness” by manager Antonio Conte, but in making nine changes from the side that played Leicester in the last of these, that could no longer be the excuse.

Unsurprisingly they had dominated the lion’s share of possession – but a series of wayward shots and a disappointing lack of invention in the final third had allowed Norwich to remain in the hunt before and after Batshuayi’s solitary success.

Substitute Alvaro Morata was the worst culprit – completely missing the goal at the far post from a deep cross just minutes before Norwich found a way back into the game.

But Pedro, too, needs to rethink his footballing philosophy in an era when VAR is coming, controversy or not.

As it was, the winger’s dive soon after the Chelsea opener was so blatant that Scott did not need any help. He immediately blew his whistle gave Norwich a free-kick and booked him for simulation. Perhaps if he had instead gone on and tried to put the ball into the back of the net? Certainly it would have saved him a suspension when he was subsequently given a second caution for a bad foul on Wes Hoolahan three minutes before the end of extra time.

But then football is full of ‘what ifs’ - as Scott himself was to discover in the extra period.

Emboldened perhaps by a decision that video evidence confirmed had been a correct one with regards to Pedro, he again backed his judgment over Willian. And Azpilicueta.

Even between those two controversies, the Oxfordshire official was having none of it when Morata claimed he had been fouled in the area. By this stage, Conte in the technical area was drawing more imaginary TV screens in the air than Lionel Blair and Una Stubbs put together.

By now, though, the drama could have graced a book, play or a film. Norwich’s resilience meant they fully deserved their place in the battle.

True Angus Gunn had had to be at full stretch to tip an early Danny Drinkwater shot onto the bar, but by the same token Josh Murphy was unlucky to hit the foot of the upright after becoming the unexpected beneficiary of Willy Caballero dropping a straightforward enough cross.

Even in the extra half-hour, Morata should have done better with a free header six yards from goal than a tame nod into the arm of Gunn but in the end Chelsea found their shooting boots when it mattered and there was nothing the Norwich goalkeeper could do.

CHELSEA (3-4-3): Caballero; Azpilicueta, Luiz, Ampadu (Christensen 81); Zappacosta, Drinkwater, Bakayoko, Kenedy (Kante 86); Willian, Batshuayi (Morata 81), Pedro. Booked: Pedro, Willian, Azpilicueta.  Goal: Batshuayi 55.

NORWICH (3-4-3): Gunn; Hanley (Cantwell 86), Zimmermann, Klose; Ivo Pinto (Tettey 116), Reed (Hoolahan 82), Vrancic, Lewis; Maddison, Oliveira, Murphy. Goal: Lewis 90.

REFEREE: G Scott (Oxfordshire)