A ball of genius, or a handy jag out of a crack. Whichever way you saw it, symbolism was heaped on Mitchell Starc's dismissal of James Vince with a delivery that seemed to speak of the gulf between the two sides. Ashes historians love these images as much as batsmen hate them.

If the reality was marginally less miraculous than the immediate visual thrill from Starc changing the direction of a ball that was scooting down leg side but instead splattered Vince's stumps, it showed Australia to be capable of game-changing feats that are beyond England's reach. You could list a few such disparities, starting with Steve Smith's batting compared to Joe Root's. Australia's captain has struck 426 runs and is averaging 142. Root has made 176 at 29.37.

“If I face that another 20, 30 times, I think it'll get me out every time,” said Vince after the cricket world went giddy over Starc's ball to remove the England No 3, who had batted stylishly for 55. “So give him some credit there, sweep it under the carpet and move on. They're a bit easier to take than the ones where you feel you're at fault yourself.”

The Starc wonder ball, which prompted that master of deception, Wasim Akram, to exclaim: “That's called a JAFFA! What a delivery -- you reminded me of my bowling days and I enjoyed it to the hilt! You made left-armers proud!”

Even allowing for the crack, nobody in the WACA commentariat was withholding any praise from Starc for a ball that angled in from a wide left-arm delivery, then deviated 42cms from where a computer projection predicted it to go.

The new direction was the middle of Vince's stumps, and when the bails flew off the batsman ignored Starc's finger-pointing and gloating to carry on staring at the pitch as if looking for a contact lens.

It was the "ball of the Ashes and the summer" according to Test legend Shane Warne.

In 1993 at Old Trafford, Warne bamboozled England veteran Mike Gatting with a ball that drifted, pitched outside leg stump, spun sharply and clipped the top of the right-hander's off stump.

The delivery to dismiss Gatting has gone down in the history books as "The Ball of the Century" but Starc has made a strong case for the ball of the 21st century.

“Not much James Vince could have done about that,” Warne said on Wide World of Sports commentary. “He might have just tried to hit it a fraction square. But that's an absolute peach from the big left-arm quick, Mitchell Starc.”

Shortly after Warne posted a replay of the Starc delivery on Instagram with a caption that read: “Ball of the #Ashes and the summer. Starc is on fire here in the west!”

Former England captain Michael Vaughan also called it the "ball of the 21st century".

Former England off-spinner Graeme Swann, meanwhile, took exception to some people not willing to elevate Starc's delivery to that level because it pitched on a crack. “People who are saying it is an exaggeration do not know the game of cricket. Left-arm round at 90 miles an hour, seaming more than a guy can spin the ball -- that is the best ball I've ever seen live in Test cricket,” Swann said in a video package for ESPNCricinfo. “People saying it's not because it landed on a crack... Shane Warne's ball of the century landed in a foothole. Get some perspective; that ball is getting Sachin Tendulkar out 1,000 times out of 1,000. It's getting Donald Bradman out 1,000 times out of 1,000. Steve Smith... 1,000 out of 1,000. It is unplayable. End of.”