Ben Stokes threatened to repeat his Headingley heroics at the scene of his other 2019 miracle but in even more extreme circumstances before ultimately falling for 155 with England still 70 runs short of his dismissal.
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As was always likely the case, England’s tail folded in rapid time after the dismissal of Stokes handing Australia an 43-run victory to 2-0 up in the 2023 Ashes.
But that was before Stokes played a hand to rival his finest hours as an England cricketer. After Jonny Bairstow was controversially run out for 10 by Alex Carey, England still needed another 179 runs to win as Stokes was joined by tail-ender Stuart Broad in the middle, a man with just one Test fifty since the start of 2018.
Stokes decided that Bairstow’s dismissal was the moment to launch into counter-attack mode. At one point he hit 23 runs off one Cam Green over, a tally that included three consecutive sixes that took Stokes to his 13th Test hundred.
After lunch there was more clarity to Australia’s plan to Stokes, dropping everyone back onto the boundary rope depriving the England captain of obvious boundary options.
With the scoring rate pegged right down with 70 to win, Stokes top edged a heave off Josh Hazlewood that landed in the hands of Alex Carey to bring an end to one of the great Test innings, though not Stokes’ greatest. After Carey completed the catch, Stokes remained motionless, head down looking at the ground for several seconds before eventually making his way to the pavilion as Lord’s stood to applaud another Stokes special.
Stokes’ innings contained nine sixes – the most in an Ashes innings, beating the record he set at Leeds four years ago. His final score of 155 is the second highest by an Englishman in the fourth innings of an Ashes Test behind Mark Butcher’s 173 at Headingley in 2001. Stokes joins Donald Bradman and Herbert Sutcliffe as the only men to have scored three fourth innings Ashes centuries.
