Just scroll through any text commentary for the final spell from Ben Stokes on the last day of the Lord’s Test and you may notice the following lines – ‘Nasty short delivery’, ‘the batter gets into a tangle against this short delivery’, ‘short ball into the body’, ‘hit on the glove’, ‘hit on the thigh’… and so on. All those short deliveries were a part of a marathon 10-over spell from Stokes, where he broke the stubborn stand between Jasprit Bumrah and Ravindra Jadeja.
Just before the lunch break, Stokes had also bowled a nine-over spell of serious heat, which included short deliveries and a vicious nip-backer to dismiss the bedrock of the Indian batting unit, KL Rahul. The commentary don’t just reveal a narrative about him taking crucial wickets, but also his untiring spirit. It would have taken a lot out of Stokes to snap his back time and again to bang it short over a long spell. At 34, he isn’t getting any younger either and he has had a couple of serious injuries in the last 12 months.
In the midst of those long spells, he was marshalling his resources and making passionate gestures to his teammates. Here is a cricketer who wants to be involved in everything and anything that is happening on the field. And that included the run-out of Rishabh Pant. In the first innings, the England skipper swooped down from cover, picked up the ball, turned towards the non-striker’s end to rattle the stumps. And he did all of it in one motion.
Until then, Pant and Rahul looked set to steer India past England’s first-innings total. All it took was one moment of magic to turn things around. In the eventual analysis, that one moment proved to be a telling difference between the two sides.
Even with the bat in hand, Stokes made a couple of useful contributions. Right through his career, he has lifted his game at crucial junctures. Way back in 2010, when India U19 took on England U19 in a World Cup game, the latter were struggling at 60 for 4. Despite England continuing to lose wickets at regular intervals, Stokes played with a sense of adventure. Ultimately, his gutsy knock was the cornerstone of England’s victory.
Since then, he has gone on to showcase his skills at the highest level – Be it his hundred at the WACA in 2013, his game-changing knock at Lord’s in 2015, the four-wicket spell at Edgbaston in 2018, the memorable innings and his herculean effort with the ball in Leeds in 2019, the monumental knock in the 2019 World Cup final, his game-breaking spell in Cape Town in 2020, and many more. And then you add the infectious energy he brings to the England team with his leadership qualities.
Stokes’ overall record may suggest he is merely a good cricketer. But looking at the kind of impact he has had on English cricket, he is more than the sum of the parts. For England, it is very much a case of cometh the hour, cometh Ben Stokes.
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