So, there it was. The first day of the 2015 Ashes. One of the most eagerly anticipated days in sport, a date circled in the diary ever since the last one finished around six to eight weeks ago.
And - we were told - a day that would irrevocably determine the destiny of the urn. The advance publicity for this series assured us that the first day, the first session, the first hour, the first over, the first ball, very possibly even the first breath, would be a decisive and possibly even fatal blow that would render the remainder of proceedings a virtual formality.
Tales abounded of first bloods past: Andrew Strauss nicking off in the first over at Brisbane in 2010, Glenn McGrath schooling England in the evening at Lord's in 2005, Australia getting skittled on the first morning at Edgbaston in 1997. Look how they all turned out. Erm, anyway.
As it turned out, what we got was something very different: a day that neither lived up nor lived down to the hype, but seemed to exist in an entirely different universe altogether.
This was not "cricket", the popular parlour game in which people gather in public to talk about Kevin Pietersen; nor was it even "cricket", the strangely euphemistic game of pre-match press conferences in which statements are made, areas are hit and parties are arrived at.
It was just cricket: an intricate bat and ball sport watched by thousands of people getting very slowly drunk. And call me an unreconstructed vulgarian if you want, but it seemed all the more nourishing for that.
The trouble with the Ashes - and perhaps it was always thus, but it is a process that seems to have accelerated in the past decade - is that some time ago it morphed into something more - and something less - than a cricket fixture.
It became a tourist attraction, a travelling circus, a news tornado, a "unique branding opportunity", something that brings "millions of pounds into the local economy", a "premium sporting event" where you can get away with selling Cornish pasties for pounds 6.
And in many ways, the SSE Swalec Stadium embodies this shift: a ground named after not one but two energy brands, which employs dozens of "Energisers" that elsewhere on planet Earth we just call "stewards".
The early signs, it has to be said, were not encouraging. Having been awarded the hosting rights for this match, the organisers appeared to be under the impression that their primary function was to show everyone as many Welsh things as possible. This reached its pinnacle - or perhaps nadir - in the frankly ridiculous opening ceremony before the match.
This is only the merest flavour, of course, but among the many attractions on display were: three light infantry divisions unfurling giant flags on the outfield (Australia, England and naturally Wales, the most important of the lot), a male voice choir belting out all three national anthems along with Jerusalem, the now-ubiquitous red carpet with a gauntlet of fire running along its entire length, and pyrotechnics spitting into the air like the jackpot on an ITV game show. All of which unfolded under slate-grey skies, amid a light drizzle.
It was, in short, about as Welsh as you could make a sporting event that did not actually include Wales. And for whose benefit was this flim-flam being conducted? Certainly not the spectators, who might have been expecting to watch some cricket by 11.09am. Certainly not the players, who looked nonplussed at best about being summoned from their dressing rooms to listen to Only Men Aloud at migraine-inducing volume. Evidently, the South Wales fire safety industry has been doing some ferocious lobbying.
You will surely have noted that just a few cold months ago, during the Six Nations, an English sporting team were receiving the most hostile of welcomes just a short walk away at the Millennium Stadium. Now, Cardiff was quite literally rolling out the red carpet for the English, which does raise the awkward question: what part of sporting enmity is sincere patriotic fervour, and what part simply clever brand positioning?
The answer is not relevant only to sports marketing students. If we are frank, none of the five Ashes series since 2005 has actually been that good. Four were hopelessly one-sided; 2009 was a low-quality series won by the team who choked marginally less frequently.
And yet, it is hard to overstate just how many people have a stake in convincing us otherwise: the county executives relying on an Ashes windfall, the broadcasters desperate for a box-office hit in an otherwise quiet summer, the sponsors paying through the nose for a slice of the pasty.
Over-hyping the Ashes suits them all. Yet all the squawking and fireworks obscure the fact that cricket is a sport like no other, a sport of intricate tactics and unspoken strategy and infinite nuance and, yes, long periods where everyone shuts up and nothing much happens.
This, I think, is why the first day's play seemed so refreshing. There was an enthralling spell when Alastair Cook tried and failed to assert his alpha-male status over Nathan Lyon, striding down the pitch like a man confidently opening a door and walking into a storage cupboard.
There was a bit when Michael Clarke finally ran out of ideas for getting Joe Root out, and just decided to arrange his fielders more or less at random, like a Salvador Dali painting.
There was a moment when Mitchell Johnson slung down yet another bumper at Moeen Ali, and they glared at each other across the pitch, sizing each other up.
In short, it was complex, enthralling sport, pleasingly free of confected incident, the sort of thing you could never capture in a promotional slogan or search-engine-optimised headline.
Not "cricket", or "cricket"; just cricket, in all its weird knobbly splendour. Who will win the Ashes? After day one, we have not the faintest idea. That is why they play the other 24 days.