There is a question of how long Chris Woakes remains part of the set-up, but he has the advantage of being the best number eight at England’s disposal. One of Dillon Pennington or Matthew Potts will come in for the second Test at Trent Bridge, while Mark Wood could also return after being added to the squad.

Sam Cook and Olly Stone are bubbling under, Josh Hull is a possible Ashes bolter and there is hope Jofra Archer can get fit enough to play Tests again.

Jamie Smith looked at home in Test cricket, doing everything he needed to with the keeping gloves, yet even he admitted that batting is his primary skill.

As Smith was pootling along with 30 from 47 deliveries, his displaced Surrey team-mate Ben Foakes would have been forgiven for thinking that he was perfectly capable of such a knock.

When Smith hit the afterburners, including a six that bounced off the roof of the Tavern Stand, he showed why he has been picked. His 70 was encouraging, with the promise of more to come.

Shoaib Bashir, on his home debut, was not required to bowl, but perhaps the biggest boost to England’s future prospects was the return to full fitness of Stokes.

How much easier the life of Stokes the captain must be now that he has Stokes the bowler at his disposal. The all-rounder’s shiny new left knee got him through an eight-over spell in the first innings and a 10-over spell in the second. All of a sudden, England have the balance of a mountain goat. Now the skipper just needs some runs.

Other positives included some breathtaking catches and a batting tempo that suited the match situation, even if at least one of England’s players should have scored a hundred. It will not have gone unnoticed by the Aussies that Harry Brook was bounced out again.

There are dangers attached to England talking about Australia this far away from the trip down under.

Any sort of slip up from now on will lead to accusations of taking their eye off the ball. In truth, they should be targeting a clean sweep of six wins in the home Tests against West Indies and Sri Lanka this summer, but the Windies in particular have a history of producing shock results.

There are other prizes to chase, too. Even with the win at Lord’s, England lie bottom of the World Test Championship,, external partly because of over-rate penalties, but mainly because they won only three of their previous 10 Tests. Climbing that would be a sign of progress towards their ultimate goal.

But England have made their intentions clear. They have pulled the trigger on the first shot in the Ashes battle.

Now they must make sure it does not backfire.