Yes. He’s the spark England sorely missed
If Ben Stokes had had a quiet night on September 24, the Ashes would still be alive. England would have arrived in Australia at the end of October full of confidence. There would have been no self-doubt creeping in, no suspense over whether or not Stokes would be joining them, none of the anxiety that comes with heightened expectations about their behaviour. With none of that tension around, Jonny Bairstow might have gone for a handshake, rather than a headbutt, on the first night of the tour. Without a curfew, they might have even gone out later, and missed Cameron Bancroft and the rest of the Western Australian team altogether.
That is to say, the whole mood of the tour would have changed.
From the moment Stokes’ brawl was splashed across the front page of The Sun, England were written off by almost everyone. A team can react one of two ways in a situation like that.
They can embrace the hate, so to speak, and hope it motivates them to prove their naysayers wrong.
Or they can let it crush them. Believing you can do something is often the first step to actually doing something, and if you let that belief be eroded, you’ve got no chance.
No-one would have believed England could beat Australia in Australia more than Stokes. And no-one’s absence would have hurt them more. Dawid Malan may have impressed in the third test in Perth in the real world, but with the fiery all-rounder in his place, England would have been a much fiercer unit.
Alastair Cook, Joe Root, Stuart Broad and James Anderson are all fine cricketers – world-class, in fact, even if they haven’t looked like it in the three Ashes tests so far. But they don’t have the spark that Stokes does. The tests in Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth may look one-sided in hindsight, but there were moments in each of them where the game was in the balance.
Could Stokes have changed things, either by his own hand, or because his presence would have eased the pressure on his team-mates, and instilled belief in them? You bet he could have. One moment in particular stands out - that ill-fated run chase in Adelaide. Had Stokes been at the crease with Root, with 180 needed for the win, it would have an entirely different dynamic.
Australia might even have been worried.