It did not take long to begin the search for comparisons. How did Headingley measure up to the great games, the great run-chases, the great upsets, the great dramas? And how did Ben Stokes’s innings compare to the great Test innings of yesteryear? As columnists scraped around to find the meaningful, you could imagine the pub conversations up and down the land. We didn’t have to look too far back, in fact.

In February this year, Kusal Perera did a Ben Stokes in Durban. Chasing plenty, Sri Lanka were down and out until the last man, Vishwa Fernando, joined Perera for what most thought would be a quick kill. Instead, playing Jack Leach’s Robin to Stokes’s Batman, Fernando partnered Perera to what remains the