It is hard to think of a bowler in the history of Test cricket who could do what Pat Cummins has done in this Test match.
Plenty have gone five-and-a-half months without playing a Test and bowled well. But very few, if any, would not have played a single white-ball or domestic game in between.
Prior to day two of this Test, December 18, Cummins last bowled a ball in a competitive game of cricket on July 13. He went 16 weeks in that time without bowling a single ball, even in the nets, to let his lumbar bone stress injury heal.
Cricket Australia's medical staff normally advise three to four months of net bowling before returning to play and even then it would be a staggered return on restrictions through domestic cricket. Cummins has returned to Test cricket on no restrictions in less than two, having bowled his first ball in the nets seven weeks ago.
His only question was skill readiness. He had bowled poorly by his standards previously coming off multiple-month layoffs and limited preparation heading into the 2023 WTC final and last year's Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
But he has looked incredible in Adelaide and has been a major difference between the two sides. He has hardly bowled a bad ball. On a flat pitch in 40-degree heat on day two, he prized out Zak Crawley and Joe Root with superb deliveries. He later bagged Jamie Smith with a barrage of short balls.
What Cummins then did on day four was superhuman. His figures of 3 for 24 off 10 do not do him justice.
Having bowled 17 overs across days two and three, there were no signs of fatigue. He looked like getting a wicket with nearly every one of his 60 balls.
Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope stood no chance, each nicking him to second slip with Marnus Labuschagne taking two catches. Labuschagne's second was a stunner diving one-handed to his left to reward his skipper who had already beaten Pope's groping bat three times.
Cummins then saved his best for Root after tea. A partnership between Crawley and Root was flourishing. Hopes of a Bazball miracle were being optimistically raised. A 28-over soft ball and a featherbed pitch seemed like hurdles for Australia.
They weren't for Cummins. Hammering away in the channel for five consecutive dots, reaching 138kph, Root was lured to try and score off the last ball of the over. He poked and nicked to Alex Carey for the second time in the match, beaten by Cummins' extra zip off the pancake pitch. It was the 'unlucky' 13th time Root has fallen to Cummins in Tests. There was no luck involved.
"It's great to see him back after quite a long time, to come in and get what he can out of the wicket," Carey said. "And even if the ball's a little bit older, he still finds something. It's not surprising. We know he's done it for years and years."
Facing Cummins anywhere is a nightmare, particularly as a right-hander. But facing him on slower, lower surfaces like this one in Adelaide makes him oddly more of a threat than his team-mates. Mitchell Starc, having taken 18 wickets in Perth and Brisbane, has been neutralised and held wicketless in Adelaide while still bowling well.
Cummins' ability to extract extra bounce makes him unique. At a place like Perth Stadium, where he has his worst average and strike-rate in Australia, players can leave him on length safe in the knowledge he finds it difficult to hit the stumps.
But on slower surfaces the stumps are in play. His release from slightly past the perpendicular sends his natural angle into a right-hander's off stump. But his high release point, his natural wobble seam courtesy of his shortened middle finger, means he can produce the odd spitting viper from a length that could also catch the outside edge.
It is a combination that lives rent free in Root's head. Four of his first eight dismissals to Cummins in Tests were either bowled or lbw. Twice in the 2019 Ashes in England at Manchester and The Oval, Cummins hit the top of Root's off stump by beating him on the outside with deliveries that angled in and straightened as he was caught on the crease.
It is clear Root is still spooked by those and is playing for a phantom off stump much wider than his actual one. It's one thing for a struggling Pope to do so, it's quite another for the second-highest runscorer in Test history, coming off a sublime century in Brisbane, to do so too.
Root has nicked Cummins behind five times in the last five Ashes Tests he has played, including twice here in Adelaide when Cummins has not played a game since July.
It might be beyond superhuman. Possibly supernatural.
That he didn't bowl again for the last 30 overs of the day raised alarm bells, having taken the first three in England's futile run chase. But Carey quelled fears saying he was fine. The skipper instead put trust in Nathan Lyon at the River End and rotated the quicks at the other.
Lyon responded taking 3 for 7 in a spell in the last hour to put Australia on the brink of an Ashes victory inside 10 days. Harry Brook failed to heed his own pre-Test words about "reining in" his approach as he was bowled behind his legs trying to reverse sweep.
Lyon then bowled his best ball of the Test to an exhausted Ben Stokes. Drifting into middle and leg, he ripped an offbreak past his forward defence to hit the top of off. More drift lured a set Zak Crawley out of his crease on 85 and Carey completed another high-quality piece of glovework to have him stumped.
"I think they've bowled very well, and haven't given us a lot," Crawley said. "They've made it very hard for us."
Cummins' absence had raised England's hopes. His miraculous comeback has been soul-destroying.