He is a specialist keeper of the old-school sense, orthodox, banished to the harsh hinterlands of domestic first class cricket after a brief foray into the Test arena. His Test recall came almost a decade later, for his glovemanship first, any batting a useful second. And this all before we knew of the disaster that was to unfold at Newlands. He’d done his time. A mature, experienced sage, hoped Australia’s selectors.

Now, unexpectedly as captain, but no less as keeper and partnership-maker, that is what he has become. The numbers don’t lie, but maybe we’re not looking at the right numbers. Avert your gaze from the average of 19 in his last ten Tests, or that he has no Test century. Look instead to the fact that he hangs around, digs in and has no qualms about someone else taking centre stage.

He did it in his captaincy duties, after the Headingley miracle. Sanguine, hiding what must have been some degree of devastation, with a chuckle and a quip he knew it was Ben Stokes’ day. So he said as much. Let him have it, offered Paine, you win the battle but we’ll still win the war.

So here we are, at the close of play on day two and Paine has played the kind of innings we appreciated before all statistics known to man were available at our fingertips. The template is simple, aim for Mike Brearley to Steve Smith’s Ian Botham-style feats.