Ben Stokes took the last three New Zealand wickets for just five runs to bowl England to a series-clinching victory at the Basin Reserve before hailing the “unbelievable bravery” and skill of his batting unit for setting up the win, Jeff Thomas reports from Wellington.
After an hour’s play on day one, a rampant and resurgent New Zealand had reduced England to 43-4, the much-maligned BlackCaps had a vice-like grip on proceedings and the destiny of the Crowe-Thorpe trophy was very much in the balance. Bewilderingly, with an hour’s play remaining at the end of day three, England had won this Test match by a staggering 323 [THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE] runs and secured an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series. The only other time since the Second World War that England have pulled off a bigger overseas win was against Bangladesh in their Test infancy.
Ahead of this match, having conspired to lose one of the greatest ever Test matches by one run on this ground less than two years ago, England captain Ben Stokes was keen to point out, this week was “all about winning” and he’d take “any kind” of victory. After 12.5 overs, any kind of victory looked a very, very long way off.
It took a knock for the ages from Harry Brook, ably supported by chief ally Ollie Pope, to bring England back from the brink on that first morning and according to Stokes it was the definitive passage of play. “Day one, being 40-4 to then end up being here on the winning side on day three is quite phenomenal,” he said. “We know we’re going to have to absorb pressure at times but also understand we need to put it back on them. I thought that was a great example by Harry Brook and Ollie Pope, unbelievable bravery, but you obviously also need to have the skill to be able to play like those two did.”
Last week at the Hagley Oval the pair guided England from 71-4 to 225-5. Given the conditions and the audacious manner in which they played, the salvage operation here in Wellington was even more impressive, navigating England in thrilling fashion from 43-4 to 217-5. “They didn’t allow their very skilful bowlers to run up and put the ball where they wanted to over and over again. As a bowler you want to be able to run up and plonk it on a length, plonk it on top of off-stump but sometimes when a batter is brave enough to take you on and try and knock you off that length it’s very hard to still run up and commit to doing that. So huge credit to the bravery of those two in particular, to take on the New Zealand bowling attack and set the game up for us.”
Having bowled New Zealand out for just 125 before lunch on day two, thanks to Gus Atkinson’s hat-trick, England’s second innings was much more plain sailing. Ben Duckett and Jacob Bethell each fell in the nineties before Joe Root helped himself to a sixth Test century of the year, equalling his own England record. “He’s desperate to do well for this team,” Stokes said. “He knows how important he is, when he does well, we generally do well. When he doesn’t score runs in a Test match, he feels like he’s let everyone down, because he’s that good.”
It was Root’s 36th Test match hundred and while it won’t live as long in the memory as many of the other 35, the way in which he reached three figures will, an impish reverse-ramp over the wicketkeeper’s head off 90mph speedster Will O’Rourke. Stokes, who had the best view in the house from the non-strikers end, was in awe. “I thought it was amazing. He had that man down there the whole morning and then he brought him up and he thought it was a good idea to scoop a six foot nine giant who’s bowling rockets. It came off, it was just awesome, absolute class.”
And what of his latest prodigy, 21-year-old Jacob Bethell? The Warwickshire man batted sublimely for a silky 96 but fell agonisingly short of becoming the first specialist batter for England to make his first first-class century in a Test match. Does Stokes feel there’s now a selection headache at No.3 following the assertion last week that Ollie Pope is still the first choice at first drop? “No, I wouldn’t say it like that. I would say, we obviously had a problem we needed to fix with what happened to Coxy [Jordan Cox, who was ruled out days before the series by injury]. We had Jacob Bethell and we obviously went with a line-up we thought was best to serve us well and it just looked really good.”
There’s an audible bounce in Stokes voice when he talks about Bethell, perhaps partly due to the vindication he has provided. But you also sense the injection of youth into the dressing has excited Stokes. “I was devastated for him to not get three figures, I walked in and I said to him, ‘It’s only four runs isn’t it?’ the response was, ‘Yeah, but it would have been flair if I smacked that through the covers to bring it up!’ So, you know, class, he’s proved a lot to a lot of people and proved why we rate him so highly.”
Bethell’s stock has risen considerably over the last couple of weeks following such a successful seizing of his unexpected opportunity but due to his freshly secured IPL gig he won’t be available for England’s next Test, a one-off game with Zimbabwe in May. For that match Ollie Pope will presumably be re-elevated back to his previous home at No.3 and pass the gloves back to the returning Jamie Smith who will bat at No.6 or No.7. However, if everyone is fit and available in June, how England’s top seven will line-up against India will be a source of great conjecture. But Stokes, who now has one more win (19) than the great Mike Brearley as England captain from the same number of games (31), has six months to figure that out.
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