Trumpeted as the "ultimate" match, a unique occasion in 143 years of the oldest international cricket venue simply demanded a showpiece performance.
So take a bow, Travis Head, the man who is rapidly turning himself into Australia's game changer, their robust answer to "BazBall".
On a day when The Oval staged its first-ever Test match without a home side to cheer, the World Test Championship final certainly had more of a feel of Mumbai than Melbourne as thousands of Indian fans ramped up the volume at the revered London venue.
But the man to put the silencers on them was Head, who reminded everyone why England captain Ben Stokes has already identified him publicly as a man who could seriously threaten the home side's ambitions this summer.
"He was so hard to bowl to in Australia when we were there last time because he just threw counter-punches," Stokes had reflected earlier in the week.
And on Wednesday, those haymakers were flying again, with a 29-year-old Adelaide southpaw looking - ominously for Stokes - like some Bazball-era Adam Gilchrist, ending the day, staggeringly, on 146 not out with the Indian attack not so much on the ropes as lying in a heap on the canvas.
It was a slightly surreal feeling at the grand old ground that this ICC global showpiece, just the second time the World Test final's been held, should still ending up having the unmistakable whiff of a pre-Ashes warm-up act.
Evidently, Head didn't see it that way, though. He came to the wicket at a precarious 3-76, the world's No.1 Test batsman Marnus Labuschagne having just been sent packing and the Indian seamers with tails up.
But he was utterly fearless in approach, just as he has been for the past 18 months, freed up to go out and play with elan.
Head got married in April and reflected after his knock: "I’m in a nice little period of my life off the field right now too and it's all emerging into clarity and consistency in a very enjoyable team to play for."
It looked that way too as he belted his first-ever overseas Test ton.
Within six balls, he'd smacked both Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami to the fence, and it wasn't long before he was uppercutting a Shami short one to the boundary with some disdain.
It wasn't all plain sailing; he did get struck in the stomach by Siraj, had a couple of edges off Ravindra Jadeja and Shardul Thakur that could have easily brought his downfall and one spiteful bouncer from Shami had him dumped on his derriere.
But when Head got to his half-century off 60 balls with a beautifully-timed push to the cover boundary, it meant that in his last 14 Test innings, he'd enjoyed nine scores of 40 or more.
It's this new-found consistency, allied to his impressive strike-rate, that makes him so threatening. Someone had suggested earlier this week that BazBall could be met by TravBall. At The Oval, it certainly looked the perfect riposte.
