“It’s the anniversary of my dad’s passing tomorrow,” Phillips said. “Hopefully, with our boys doing their thing, maybe I’m not going to be needed tomorrow. But today is close enough for the moment to matter, and he’s been a big role in my life. I know he would have loved to be here to see that, and Test cricket was his favourite format… I know he’s watching in some stage.”

“We’ve actually had one of those duels before, six or seven years back in New Zealand, and he pretty much hit me in the exact same spots all over,” Phillips said. “He bowls with great heat, great accuracy, and he just kept coming back… Obviously, it was a thrilling contest for the crowd to see as well, and sometimes you’ve just got to enjoy it, laugh, and hope for the best.”

Phillips scored 13 runs off the 44 balls he faced from Archer in total, of which only three came on the second morning, with England’s stand-in captain Joe Root seemingly conscious of managing his workload after an eight-over spell the night before. He plundered 87 runs off the 91 deliveries he faced from England’s other bowlers, taking a particular liking to Baker.

Phillips said that he felt like his maiden hundred was “always coming” but downplayed the significance of the milestone, citing Williamson’s team-first mindset. “Kane obviously speaks about it quite a lot: we score our runs, but they’re never our runs,” Phillips said. “We’re just custodians of those runs for the team. We try to do things for the team.”

“[I was] not necessarily training red-ball cricket per se, but having that same mindset of being still, trying to keep my head as still as possible, and play the ball as late as possible, under my eyes.”

Glenn Phillips was readying himself for Tests even during IPL

Phillips was the leading run-scorer in a low-scoring first Test at Lord’s, and is the only centurion on either side to date, despite the fact that he had not played for six weeks leading into the series after he was dropped by Gujarat Titans midway through the IPL.

“I still had to be prepared to play, but we were very, very lucky at Gujarat with the amount of facilities that we had,” he said. “[I was] not necessarily training red-ball cricket per se, but having that same mindset of being still, trying to keep my head as still as possible, and play the ball as late as possible, under my eyes. Definitely, there was time to be able to have those sorts of nets sessions, do my throwdowns.

“We were very spoiled for choice over there with the number of facilities and people that we had on board… It’s just a matter of trying to get used to that red ball when you get over here, and obviously the Dukes is always slightly different [to the Kookaburra]. For me, it was then about making that adjustment when we got to Lord’s, trying to adjust as quick as possible.”