• ‘So much work and time has been put into this’ says Australia captain • Smith credits his pace bowlers – ‘The work that they do is incredible’

Steve Smith will never step on to the Waca in his baggy green again, with international cricket due to move across the river to the shiny new stadium near the casino. But he takes with him some memories.

On this ground in 2010 he earned his first home Test cap and was sledged by an England side that did not respect him. In 2013 it was the site of his watershed home ton and maiden Ashes triumph. On Monday it was where the virtuoso of the modern game led his country to reclaim the trophy that matters most.

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“I was crying in the sheds a bit a minute ago,” Smith told ABC radio shortly after the win. “Everything just came out. So much work and time has been put into this.”

It was a dream come true, he said – an amazing couple of weeks. So special that he could not immediately comprehend the gravity of it all. Smith has never been more openly expressive than in the moments following the final wicket. It was correlative to the intensity in his stride earlier on when he paced back and forth from the rooms to the pitch, doing everything in his power to persuade match officials to let the match continue after water got under the covers.

Smith knows any result other than a home series victory gets ugly. He saw it when England did the business in the 2010-11 series. Crisis is declared, reviews are commissioned, leaders lose their jobs. The opposite is true as well. As if he was not before, Smith is now a national hero. But with his foot on the proverbial throat of England, a fifth-day washout – the very idea England could be let back into this contest – consumed his Sunday night thinking.

“I did look at the forecast on about 35 different sites,” he said with a laugh, before getting angry that the whole saga had played out to begin with. Sure, this was not the 1975 George Davis game where protesters sabotaged the pitch (fun as it was to speculate), nor the drama of The Oval in 1968 when the crowd cleaned up the field then Derek Underwood went to work. It was a shambles all the same.

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Of course, the Australia captain knew he had the tools to finish the assignment quickly when they did get on, namely Josh Hazlewood. The only thing more certain in this Test than Smith waltzing to a defining ton on day three was the relentlessly accurate quick bowler picking up a bag of wickets. As if foretold, he found the infamous wet patch with his first delivery, keeping just low enough to confuse Johnny Bairstow’s defence and crash into his stumps.

The rest was inevitable. It sounds easy when put like that, but the hard part was getting the Australian trio of seamers – the “big three”, as Smith describes them – on the park together in the first place. It is easy to forget that Brisbane, only three weeks ago, was when that happened for the first time.

“A lot of praise has to go to the medical staff to ensure those guys were ready to go and also the selectors for ensuring those three bowlers were ready,” Smith said. “We knew what we had coming up and we wanted those big three on the park to do what they have. The work that they do – the weights, the rehab, the fitness – everything they do to get themselves right for Test match cricket is incredible.”

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Usually Smith is the sort of captain who finds it hard to speak about his own success. Ask a question about him, expect an answer about the team. But this was different too, as it should be after 426 runs at an average of 142 in the Tests that decided the home of the urn for the next couple of years. “I really wanted to do some really great things,” he said of his determination to make it count as an Ashes leader. “It is huge for Australian cricketers and English cricketers. There is always that added pressure. It was my first Ashes series as captain and I wanted to make my mark and do something really special.”

It is a bit quirky that he considers it only “in the top three” moments in his career to date. For now, that is: 5-0, anyone? “It would be fantastic to do that and we will talk about Melbourne when we get there,” he said. But the look in the eye suggests that will quickly become the only thing he cares about. Mitchell Starc’s bruised heel could keep him out, although he has already insisted to his captain he will be there on Boxing Day too.

For a generation Australia’s self-described final frontier was India. From now, winning in England will carry a similar status until the return bout of 2019. Doubly so given that 2001 was the last time they won on British soil. Was Smith already thinking about that? “We have conversations here and there,” he said suggestively.

The nature of the Test cricket schedule means it is not much a sport for finish lines but, as far as where energy is invested between now and then, this might just be an exception. If Smith continues doing as he pleases and his quicks stay fit, achieving that should evolve into a question of why not, rather than why.