Stoking the fire
Ben Stokes emerged as England's hero in the World Cup 2019. But only Stokes knew what he was going through in that iconic nal at the Lord's, which ended in a Super Over!
If ever there was a ball to hit for a six in a Super Over, the rst ball was the one. It was straight in the slot. I wound up but totally mishit it. Luckily, I managed to get enough wood on it to get it up and over short third man. We scrambled back for three but, to be honest, I am not sure how it didn’t go for four. Normally at Lord’s, if a ball gets through the outeld, even if it is going uphill it gets to the rope, but this one almost plugged due to the backspin on the ball as it hit the turf.
Next up, Jos also got one that he would arguably have hit for six several times out of ten, but in pressure moments things become a lot harder to pull o. Instead of striking it cleanly, he scued it to deep square for one and so we had four runs o two deliveries. Boundaries are key in a situation like this and getting one away early not only increases your condence, it puts the opposition under pressure.
Thankfully, I managed to get a good connection on the third ball of the over, getting down to sweep o middlestump to deep squareleg, bisecting the two New Zealand boundary riders on that side of the ground. Yet another opportunity to nd the rope presented itself from the next ball, but unfortunately I hit a full toss straight to Lockie Ferguson at point.
The entire oside eld was up inside the circle and if I had manipulated the ball into the gap it would have been four. Instead, we had to settle for a single. It handed things back over to Jos. I knew when we got to the crease that, despite it being the end of a very physically demanding day, I’d potentially have to run my arse o for every single one of these six balls. So as soon as he made contact with a perfect, dipping yorker, I got my head down and sprinted.
Henry Nicholls, the elder at deep extra cover, appeared to lose the path of the ball momentarily in the sun which potentially bought us a couple of seconds, but I would have backed us to get home regardless. When Jos then worked the last one — a full bunger on his knee roll — over midwicket for our second boundary of the over, it was another one of those moments for me on a seesaw day of emotions. The world’s most famous cricket ground was bouncing.
That’s it, we’ve won the World Cup, thought.
I jumped up in the air, arms aloft in celebration. Before New Zealand’s batsmen had even faced a ball, I was going nuts. Hand
I on heart, I no longer thought we could get beat. In my mind, there was no way that they could knock o 16 from one over from Jofra Archer, who had spent our sixball innings warming up with our bowling coach Chris Silverwood by the dugout.in contrast, Jos didn’t react at all. There was no alteration in his facial expression. He just walked o.