The Australians are in a world of pain right now. At match’s end, they stood rooted to their fielding positions, upright but stone dead. If a passing cameraman had poked Nathan Lyon in the chest, he would have crumbled into the turf. But in time, they will appreciate that they were part of and witness to something truly astonishing, unlikely to be repeated in their cricketing lifetimes. Applause for Ben Stokes. Credit:AP Dimly, Paine divined this. Ricky Ponting said Stokes’ innings was the best he had seen in Tests, and that covers a few. In time, they will get mileage out of their fall guy roles. The boys of '81 have. But, hopefully, it will not transpire that any of them made a killing! Reflexively, Australia will tip-toe around Stokes for a while. But they’re still in the Ashes, and for Manchester, they get Steve Smith back. If it ever was going to be a dead rubber, you daren’t put your hand on it now, for fear of electrocution. This is how it goes in Ashes cricket.

Did the Australians make mistakes here? Of course they did. Some mishandling, a dropped catch, a crucial fumble. A second review frittered with five runs to get, thinking it would be their last expiring half-chance, which left them helpless to go to DRS to overturn the non-lbw decision against Stokes that would have won them the match by a run. They were forced mistakes, as in tennis. They’re human. They will have to live with them for, oh, the rest of their lives. Or not. Victory at Old Trafford in a fortnight would begin to ameliorate the hurt immediately. Cricket’s like that. Nathan Lyon appeals after Ben Stokes is hit on the pads with England one run behind Australia. Credit:AP If any one ball of dozens on the last day or even the last over had played out differently, we might have been eulogising Paine’s mastery instead of mounting an inquiry. There was, for instance, his decision to bring back Lyon with eight needed. Stokes himself thought it brilliant; Lyon was the last bowler he wanted to face then. It so nearly worked. It did work, but for umpire Joel Wilson’s blurry eye, and, ahem, DRS.

Loading Human England, fallible England, flighty England also made mistakes, plenty of them. Ginger-haired, ruddy-complexioned Stokes saved a lot of red faces. But they’re forgotten now, of course. There was only one superhuman out there, the one standing with legs akimber, biceps bulging, fists clenched after belting the winning run, a colossus, whooping and hollering. He even did his own sound effects. It was impossible not to see the image of Ian Botham, down the detail of the preceding abjection. For Botham, it was a pair in the previous match, the last straw for his captaincy. For Stokes, it was an embarrassingly bad shot to get out in England’s comically meagre first innings 67. For Stokes as for Botham, it was looming forfeiture of the Ashes. Now Stokes stood as a picture of almost mythical invincibility, but like Botham, that belies exquisite skill. Remember the stupidly good succession of sixes - because how will anyone ever forget? - but don’t forget that Stokes made two from 65 balls at the start of his innings, when what was needed most was ballast.

Loading Remember how he amalgamated all forms of the game into one form at the end, but don’t forget the way he placed and weighted shots into the outfield for two to keep the strike in the denouement, like a soccer midfielder’s pass to a breaking forward, the better to keep the strike. Runs and strike all counted, oh how they did. Don’t forget the unflagging 15-over spell he bowled all the way back on Friday night and Saturday morning, his last ball as energetic as the first, that made England at least think they were back in the match. Stokes never doubted it. (Also, don’t forget Jack Leach’s heroic one not out. Stokes didn’t. England never will). The World Cup, the Ashes, vilification in a pub: is there nothing Stokes can’t fix with a lusty swing or two? At this rate, as well as knight him, they will draft him into Westminster or Whitehall, to deal with that pesky backstop (yes, he was born in New Zealand, but they’re not as fussy about that sort of thing as we are). Last series in Australia, he was by his involuntary absence England’s greatest presence. He was an outcast then, with an assault charge hanging over him (see vilification, above), a disappointment in his own country, a pariah in every other.

Now he is plentifully present, a hulking, blocky manifestation at bowling and popping crease, an ever-growing force with bat and ball, an updated Botham for a new generation. It can only have been accidental, but there was something Bothamesque and staged about the way his sixes kept landing in the fiercely partisan western terrace. It was as if he was enlisting the whole of Yorkshire, the whole of England to the cause. England's Ben Stokes embraces Australia's Marnus Labuschagne after England won the third Test. Credit:AP One peculiarity of this Ashes series is the way each match has been identified with one player. In the first, it was Smith: what to do about him? In the second, it was Jofra Archer: how to handle him? Now it is Stokes. How will anyone trump him? That's for then. This is now. Even before Stokes took the game by the scruff of the neck and set it on his personal mantelpiece, it had been a rollicking good day’s cricket, ebb followed by flow, spurt after stoppage, lurch after lull, after lurch.