Long before England's Jimmy Anderson fended the brutal fifth ball of the last over of a fluctuating, absorbing and ultimately dramatic second Test, the people of Yorkshire had spoken.
If Afghanistan thought this would bring them some respite they were wrong as Maxwell took over, hitting six fours and seven sixes in a brutal 39-ball innings, during which he scored 88, as Smith increased his own scoring rate to reach 95 before driving one straight to Najibullah Zadran off Shapoor with seven overs remaining.
On the agenda: flaming fastballs, fading change-ups, brutal breaking balls and an elastic strike zone that's ever expanding.
Paul Gallen, Sam Tagatese, Chris Heighington, theses guys were brutal with the ball against the Bunnies.
Joe Gray was forced to leave the field with a bad eye injury on the half hour, replaced by Rob Buchanan, and, with plenty of incident off the ball, brutal tackles were flying in on both sides in what had become a hugely physical contest.
Balls, wrong-footed by Cameron and unsettled by the shrill media response to the death, set in train events that would lead within a month to Shoesmith's brutal sacking by Balls, live on TV.
He is a brutal striker of the ball, not high on aesthetics but very effective.
On the field where players once barreled into one another, cracking heads and bones in brutal pursuit of the ball, a referee's whistle regulates play.
Graeme Smith was caught by Marsh in the slips off Johnson's fourth ball, a brutal bouncer that reared up to hit the bat handle.
Remarkably it took them just 8.2 overs, losing only the wicket of their captain Robert Croft, who made a brutal 46 off 25 balls in concert with the equally destructive Ian Thomas, who made 38 not out off 25 balls.
