Steve Smith's decision not to ask Pakistan to bat again in the first Test match in Brisbane on Saturday raises the question of whether there is any point to the follow-on rule at all.
Lower-order runs might be an afterthought, but Test series are invariably won by the team whose bottom four contribute more.
Six years in, I still don't know if my instinctive fondness for the BBL proves that I am a renaissance man of catholic tastes and broad toleration, or a pea brain.
With allowances made for daylight savings, television schedules and stopping Queensland's curtains from fading, the inaugural pink-ball Test match at the Gabba started only two hours later than the old red-ball ones.
Given the events of May 2013, Mickey Arthur's confessed feelings about coaching Pakistan against Australia are even less 'surreal' than the fact that it is Darren Lehmann who is under more pressure to keep his job.
Whew. That's a sigh of relief, not a reaction to a bad smell. For a moment the Australian cricket team was at its lowest point since the mid-1980s. But that kind of talk is so two weeks ago.
A man, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, is what he thinks about all day long. What then was Tiger Woods? What he thought about all day, or what he thought about all night?
Australia might have hit rock bottom during the series with South Africa, but they are still searching for depth.
The most frequently asked question this cricket season is: 'Are they that good or are we that bad?' Or, a year ago when Australia were playing the West Indies: 'Are they that bad or are we that good?'
The promoters of day-night Test cricket have declared the experiment a success, yet it is far from a sure thing that next summer's Ashes series will feature a pink-ball game.
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