Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Here aggro again
STOKES WARNS ELGAR & CO IT’S GOING TO GET PERSONAL
BEN STOKES has warned South Africa he is looking for another personal battle in Manchester to get him firing on all cylinders again.
At the Oval it was Dean Elgar who had to cope with the full force of Stokes’ attentions, getting hit several times and now carrying a possible broken finger as a result.
Elgar got his eighth Test ton to win the battle he called “brilliant”, but Stokes won the war with a 239-run win to send England to Old Trafford on Friday full of confidence and ready to produce more of the same. “I got a bit of confidence out of seeing the ball carrying through nicely to Jonny Bairstow, bowling the aggressive stuff at Elgar, trying to get him on the back foot,” said Stokes.
“I try to get in a battle with the batsman which stirs me up.
“It’s great to be part of an individual battle which I felt me and him had throughout the game. I make it about saying ‘I want to get you out’, or ‘I want to try to get the better of you’.
“Sometimes, it doesn’t go that way but there’s always another opportunity.
“You pick out certain individual players as a bowler.
“For example, Elgar got the better of me on day five when I tried to go hard at him whereas the previous night I rapped him on the gloves a couple of times.
“I was trying to carry that same type of approach in the morning but he came out with a different attitude and decided to take it on. It was a seriously gutsy hundred.”
Stokes has claimed his highest-ranking positions with bat (25), ball (19) and as an all -rounder (5) in Test cricket.
But he is one of only a few fast bowling all-rounders in the world, and he has made a compelling argument to be considered the best with his form over the last couple of years. Certainly Joe Root wouldn’t be swapping him for any other player.