Having waited 140 years for an invite, Tasmania wasted no time enjoying the Ashes party.
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The state's inaugural Australia-England Test match exploded into life with a flurry of early wickets, an aggressive response from the batters and, perhaps most surprisingly, a competitive performance from a touring side long since resigned to heading home empty-handed.
On a deck as green as the home players' training tops, cricket's oldest rivals produced a superb day of entertainment for 9002 spectators.
Only a dropped catch prevented the visitors from transforming David Warner, Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne into three ducks before the latter morphed into a phoenix, rising from the Ashes to spearhead the counter-attack.
Travis Head (101) picked up the baton and galloped to his fourth Test century before Cameron Green (74) continued the charge as Australia reached 6-241 before play was suspended and eventually abandoned early in the final session due to drizzle so light most Tasmanians hadn't even noticed it.
This was no dead rubber.
England may be trailing 3-0 but produced one of their best days of the entire series after a rain-delayed start under grey Hobart skies.
Fresh from their best result in Sydney, the tourists still changed half their side as Ollie Pope, Rory Burns, Ollie Robinson and Chris Woakes returned while Sam Billings became the 700th Englishman to play Test cricket.
Australia welcomed Head back from a COVID-enforced break, opener Marcus Harris the unlucky man to be dropped despite averaging more than seven English batsmen.
The roller-coaster start saw Australia lose 3-12 in the first 10 overs before counter-attacking with 0-65 off the next 10.
Winning the toss and opting to bowl in ideal conditions, England deployed as many as five slips and they were soon required.
Warner and Smith were both caught by slip no.2 Zak Crawley off Robinson (2-24) for ducks, albeit with the former absorbing 20 more deliveries, while Usman Khawaja located Root at first slip, off Stuart Broad (2-48) for six.
It could have been even better for the English as Crawley spilled the chance of making Labuschagne Robinson's third duck and the big-hitting no.3 was quick to make them pay.
Deciding the best form of defence was attack, Labuschagne found a willing partner in Head and swiftly accumulated nine boundaries in his 44 before becoming the fourth casualty of the opening session.
Having oozed class throughout the series, it was a dismissal to forget for the South African-born Queenslander who misjudged a Broad delivery and was left in as big a heap as his stumps.
Undeterred, Pat Cummins' men continued to attack in a one-sided second session.
Head was magnificent. Requiring just 53 balls, he recorded the third fastest half-century of the series, behind only himself in Brisbane (off 51) and Adelaide (off 49).
Just 113 deliveries were required to reach his ton before he departed off the 114th, caught, rather tamely by Robinson at mid-on, off Chris Woakes.
It was the only loss of a session which saw the Aussies rattle up 130 runs at a speedy 4.64 per over.
The rain-shortened final session witnessed the addition of another 21 quickfire runs but also the loss of Green who gave Crawley his third catch of the day by pulling Wood to deep square-leg.
Ultimately, Australia had a marginally better day than England. And substantially better than Novak Djokovic.
- Day 1: Australia 6-241 (Head 101, Green 74, Labuschagne 44; Robinson 2-24, Broad 2-48, Woakes 1-50, Wood 1-79)