England look to action man Stokes in Champions Trophy

BEN STOKES (pix) would be the first to say England are more than a oneman team but if anyone sums up their revival in limited overs cricket it is the dynamic Durham all-rounder.

Just over two years since a defeat by Bangladesh in Adelaide sealed their embarrassing first-round exit from the 2015 World Cup, England face the Tigers in the Champions Trophy opener at The Oval on Thursday with genuine optimism they can at last win a first major one-day international tournament.

Part of the reason for that is Stokes.

The son of a former New Zealand rugby league international, he also had cricket in his genes thanks to his mother, Deborah, a noted player.

Born in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, Stokes moved with his parents to England as a boy when his father, Ged, got a job coaching northwest rugby league club Workington.

It was soon clear he had inherited his mother’s telent, with Ged Stokes telling the Daily Mirror: “Deb was a very good cricketer and I was OK

“At a very early age, before he left New Zealand, he started showing signs he could develop into a very good cricketer.

“He had an instinctive technique and style of play – it was very basic, almost ‘see ball, hit ball.”

That same uninhibited approach, albeit with a few refinements, remains at the heart of left-handed batsman Stokes’s approach at the crease.

For all the 25-year-old’s power strokeplay – as exemplified in his blistering 79-ball 101 featuring 11 fours and three sixes during England’s two-run win in the second one-day international against South Africa at Southampton on Saturday – Stokes’s batting is based on a sound straight drive.

His aggressive approach is one that has served him well in all formats, as he showed with a blistering Test-match 258 from 198 balls against South Af- rica at Cape Town last year.

On his day, and in the right conditions, he can also be an effective right-arm swing bowler.

But in age where all bowlers can get “collared” in white-ball cricket, Stokes suffered when, having to defend 19 in the last over of the 2016 World Twenty20 final in Kolkata, he was hit for four successive sixes by Carlos Brathwaite as the West Indies completed an improbable victory.

England’s hope is that this remains his lone “nightmare” spell with the ball, with Stokes resilient enough to absorb the experience.

Stokes’s left knee, which was operated on last year, however, is preventing him from doing much bowling at the moment.

The joint is not yet quite the topic of national conversation that Denis Compton’s knee was when the England batting great was having injury problems in the 1950s and Durham star Stokes tried to play down concerns by saying Saturday: “It’s just the bowling that’s getting affected by my knee.

“Batting, fielding and running around isn’t an issue.”

England will settle for that. – AFP