England need to devise a plan to cope without Stokes
Once-in-a-generation cricketer set to miss the Ashes
years, he and Jonny Bairstow have provided middle-order ballast to tide over top-order batting woes, while his ability to bowl a heavy ball and reverse swing with tremendous accuracy has given captains the luxury of playing a fifth specialist bowler.
Australia have an impressive fast-bowling arsenal, but plenty of batting travails of their own. If Stokes isn’t around, however, the support for the waning old firm of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad looks very thin. But Australia will do well not to treat the new faces lightly, especially when they look back at their own cricket history and one of their most famous wins.
In the southern-hemisphere winter of 1995, Australia’s cricketers journeyed to the Caribbean for what was effectively a contest to decide the best Test side in the world. West Indies had not lost at home in 22 years, having won 14 of their last 15 series. They hadn’t lost anywhere since an ill-tempered contest in New Zealand in 1980.
West Indies had lost some of their aura, and greatest players to retirement, but the consensus was that Australia would need to be at their very best to beat the No.1ranked side. Before the final match of the ODI series that preceded the four Tests, though, Craig McDermott fell off a sea wall in Georgetown, Guyana, and tore ligaments in his ankle.
In the 3-1 Ashes victory a few months earlier, McDermott — who led the attack for a decade, and inspired an improbable World Cup win in 1987 — had taken 32 wickets at 21. Damien Fleming, whose 10 wickets at 27.4 had been a valuable support act for McDermott and Shane Warne, was also ruled out through injury.
But adversity got the best out of Mark Taylor’s Australian team. Lacking McDermott’s pace, they changed tack and opted for attrition against the top order and intimidation against the tailenders.
The unheralded Glenn McGrath took 17 wickets, Paul Reiffel matched Warne’s tally of 15, and Brendon Julian took nine. With Steve Waugh grafting 429 runs, including an epic 200 at Sabina Park, Australia won 2-1.
Pace-bowling all-rounders of the quality of Stokes come along every few decades. The real characters are as rare. At the end of a day’s play in Chennai last December, with the series already lost and another defeat looking likely, Stokes was asked what he and his teammates would take away from such a chastening experience. Instead of lapsing into clichés or platitudes, he simply said: “Sunburn.”
Now, he needs that level of honesty to deal with his behavioural issues. Bristol wasn’t the first time he had walked on the edge. He must make sure it’s the last. English cricket simply cannot afford to have him disappear into the abyss.