Alastair Cook doesn’t sweat the small stuff. Nor, come to think about it, is the eccrine gland unduly troubled by the big stuff either.

He has been in vintage form this week. Drawn into a press conference at The Gabba, as great lathers of confected bile sloshed around the Queensland air, soaking the seedy echo chambers of social media, Cook sighed, smiled, and talked about Luton putting seven past Cambridge at the weekend. He’s been pulling his bat inside the line all of his professional life. Never has being out of step with the spirit of the age looked so stylish.

In our particular world, the barbs and digs that are now accepted as part of the pre-Ashes sideshow diminish the majesty of the fare it purports to offer. It doesn’t reflect well on the game at large. Is cricket really so unsure of itself? Is the game’s self-worth really so paper-thin? Even that lazy shorthand for sporting ugliness, football, rarely resorts to this kind of back-alley mudslinging. Can you think of an example from football when a player openly declares his desire to terminate the livelihood of another? Or when one side predicts the imminent pulling up lame of injury-prone opponents some time before half-time? Our basest instincts are stirred by this rubbish.

There is a time and a place for everything, and if Stokes is to be fully reintegrated into the heart of English cricket where he undoubtedly belongs, a little humility will go a long way to putting him there. The English public doesn’t mind a rascal; in fact, it rather likes one. But what the English like even more is a little class, and a sprinkling of humbleness, to go with the God-given gifts and the big house in the country. Just ask Alastair Cook.