As England muddled their way to a potentially defendable lead over Australia at Edgbaston on day four, Ben Stokes offered a precursor of his best, writes Katya Witney.
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When Joe Root attempted to reverse-scoop Pat Cummins from the first ball of day four at Edgbaston, he once again set the tone those who’ve watched England over the last year have become accustomed to. By the time he was out, England had scored 101 runs in just under 15 overs. Ben Stokes came out to bat having just watched Root charge past a spinning delivery from Nathan Lyon, in the full knowledge that he held the precarious balance of England’s chances of victory almost solely in his own hands.
From there, he played out 16 dots from his first 19 balls. While Harry Brook looked to be aggressive to Lyon, reverse-sweeping and dancing down the wicket to varying degrees of success, Stokes stayed solidly in defence. As Lunch approached, there were signs he was starting to accelerate. Taking a fancy to Scott Boland, he charged down the wicket and flicked the ball off the face for his first boundary. He walked down the wicket to Boland again two balls later but this time offered a solid defence.
His self-denial meant England went into Lunch with him, and Jonny Bairstow, still crucially in place. Had Stokes charged down Lyon and missed as Root had done or whacked him straight to mid-wicket as Brook had done, England would have been looking at game, set and match. That he survived that tricky spell before lunch, where Australia were bowling well and England had begun to wobble, enabled him to cash in afterwards.
Admittedly, he didn’t give himself the same grace when he came back out. After playing out a maiden to Lyon, he charged down the first ball he faced off Boland and reverse swept him two balls later. If he had got out to that shot, it would have gone down as another reckless and wild dismissal for a player who is better than the summation of his dismissals over the last year.
Since June 2022, Stokes has averaged 34.75 with the bat, striking at 71.94. During the most profitable period of his Test career, 2019 and 2020, his average read 50.41 and his strike rate 56.44. Since his century against South Africa last summer, he hasn’t made a single score of fifty or more. In the first innings at Edgbaston, having almost dragged on reverse-sweeping Lyon off his third delivery, he fell to Hazlewood from another expansive shot to his eighth.
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Similar ends have littered themselves over Stokes’s record over the last 12 months. There was a first-innings hack in Wellington. A thick edge to slip against South Africa at The Kia Oval, having been dropped off a top edge the ball before. Or the caught-at-mid-off, again a ball after being dropped, against India. While the mitigation for Stokes’s volatile approach has been the self-sacrificial aspect of leading his team’s style from the front, he’s left a lot of runs out there over the last year.
Today, he genuinely moved through the gears. He didn’t come out looking to slog from ball one. He patiently weathered a tough spell before looking to cash in against Boland, whose economy rate has exceeded five in both innings in this Test.
While there were premeditated shots as he began to hit a groove, a couple bordering on the danger zone against Lyon and Pat Cummins, they didn’t have the same recklessness as many of the other impulsive rampages he has gone on in the name of embodying his own thesis. Indeed, it never felt like he really hit his top gear today.
The ball that dismissed him was decent. It nipped in and beat him all ends up. His footwork wasn’t pristine, and he played down the wrong line, but it wasn’t another ugly carve down mid-on’s throat. By the time he was out, England had gone from 129-4 to 210-7. They were still a way off posting a total that would put them as favourites, but there was hope of either capitalising on the rain forecast tomorrow or genuinely restricting Australia to below their target.
Stokes is a master of understanding the situation of a game. While England could lose the Test match tomorrow, they will need more of the intelligence Stokes showed at the crease today if they are to pull back that deficit.
