And they said Test cricket was in its death throes! This epic, attention-grabbing, emotion-wringing Ashes series ended in the last minutes of the last hour of the last session of the last day of the last match: who could ask for more? England have had a number of very good captains since Mike Brearley took voluntary redundancy from the job (for the second time) in 1981, but Ben Stokes has really measured up to his illustrious predecessor over the past six weeks of mesmerising sport. They are cut from very different cloth: Stokes is more intuitive than Brearley, who was perhaps more cerebrally attuned to the needs of leadership.

There is little doubt that had the two sides in the Ashes switched captains, Australia would have won at a canter. Which is not to diminish Pat Cummins as a man or a cricketer. As a captain though, he was way behind Stokes, who was helped in a small way by the injury that reduced him to a part-time bowler. Cummins, meanwhile, has had to lead the team over six exhausting Test matches, including the World Championship, as well as flogging himself as the tireless spearhead of the pace-bowling attack.

Of all Stokes’s extraordinary achievements as player, captain and tactician, one stands out in its Brearley-esque psychological power. In his response to the controversy over the Bairstow stumping at Lord’s, Stokes confined himself to commenting, ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to win that way.’ It was magnificently brief, pointedly critical of Cummins and Carey, while also quietly claiming the moral high ground.

Not forgetting Stuart Broad, who managed to turn the final Ashes Test into a festival of Broad, bandanas and bails. Broad is so canny that he convinced the world his retirement was a last-minute decision, when clearly it had been on the cards for some time, and Sky had a lengthy highlights and tribute package firmly in the can ready for the big day. Broad is every bit as good a master of PR and comms as he is of the quick outswinger to the left-hander from round the wicket. Get that man to No. 10 as soon as possible.

It is always a fascinating question for a sports person – when is the right moment to quit? No one can blame an athlete for wanting to stay on the main stage for as long as they think they can do the business better than anyone else. But the suspicion must be – and it would be sad if this were the case – that Jimmy Anderson, Broad’s companion in arms, might have just missed a trick. It is hard to see him being selected to tour India with England this winter, so how likely is it that he will be selected to face the West Indies and Sri Lanka here in nearly a year’s time, in the teeth of competition from Josh Tongue, Matthew Potts, Ollie Robinson and the rest?

Anderson will thus be denied a big grandstanding finish on the scale Broad cleverly engineered for himself. Knowing him as we think we do, though, I’m not sure he will be too bothered about missing the pomp and circumstance of an Oval departure.

The very opposite of the thrillingly contested Ashes comes every couple of weeks or so at the race tracks of the world, where Formula 1 has become so one-sided it is astonishing anyone is still watching. It’s not a good show any more. Max Verstappen could start 20 minutes after anyone else and still win. Maybe he can go on a bit of a run now and win every race until 2029.

At least other great racers have had some rivals. But Verstappen and Red Bull are virtually unstoppable on their cruise to the chequered flag. The only excitement comes off course, as when Lando Norris, in a supremely idiotic way, accidentally used a champagne bottle to smash up Verstappen’s Ming vase-style winner’s trophy in Hungary.