At the end of the fourth day’s play here the abiding question wasn’t whether England could complete a record-breaking fourth innings chase or even if they could bat the match out to secure the draw. It was why everyone is still watching an England team coached by Brendon McCullum six months after he ought to have moved on from the job.

The way we tell it in this country, McCullum’s backstory as England coach begins on 2 January 2013 when, in his first match as New Zealand’s Test captain, the team were bowled out for 45 by South Africa at Cape Town. Legend has it this was the watershed Test. In a management meeting that evening, McCullum laid out his ideas about the way the game should be played. The hard-charging, happy-go-lucky approach that has characterised England’s cricket in the past four years was born right here, when, New Zealand’s coach, Mike Hesson, said, McCullum was first empowered “to do the job the way he wanted it done”.

There is a chapter missing in this version. Everyone involved in New Zealand cricket knows it by rote, but it’s not often discussed in England. It’s all about what happened in the months running up to that match, when McCullum’s predecessor as captain, Ross Taylor, was forced out of his job by Hesson, who was an old teammate of McCullum’s.

Here’s more on the news that Ben Stokes is back, baby

What do you get if you pick three debutants, two more with one cap each, a strike-bowler who is returning to Test cricket after two solid months of sending down four-over spells in India, and hand the captaincy to a guy who has spent the past four years with the job happily in his rear-view mirror?

Throw in a seasoned opposition side like Tom Latham’s New Zealand and the answer, England have discovered, is the need to knock off a monstrous fourth-innings target of 463 – or bat out nearly five sessions – to avoid a defeat that will invite questions beyond simply that optimistic selection.

So, about that third Test. Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson have been withdrawn from Durham and Surrey’s ongoing County Championship matches at the request of the ECB. The services of Benoit Blanc will not be required on this matter.

Do me a quick favour: close your eyes and just imagine the noise when Stokes walks out to bat at Trent Bridge. It might even register on the Headingley 2019ometer.

This shouldn’t take long. New Zealand need five wickets to wrap up an emphatic victory at The Oval and set up a mouth-moistening series decider at Trent Bridge later in the week. The only teeny-tiny hope for England is the not dissimilar precedent of Aukland 2013. On that occasion they were four down going into the last day, with one of the not-out batters a pre-pubescent Joe Root one of the not-out batters.

They saved that Test, and the series, with a performance of immense defiance led by Matt Prior. (Funny how things work out. At 31, Prior seemed to be moving inexorably towards greatness; 18 months later he was done as a Test cricketer.)

Realistically, on a day like today, ‘remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation. England are going to lose – decisively, deservedly – and tomorrow’s headlines will be about the future. One subject will be discussed more than any other: what part, if any, Ben Stokes and the rest of the absent Oval Five play in that series decider.