WELCOME TO THE PANTHEON OF ENGLAND GREATS
Stokes’ stunning summer lifts him alongside legends Flintoff and Botham
This is no longer about the redemption of Ben stokes. it goes way beyond that. This is now a tale of cricketing greatness that could propel England to both the World Cup and the Ashes.
it has been easy for the narrative of this ‘summer of stokes’ to focus on his attempt to make up for time lost by the Bristol affair and his consequent absence from an Ashes series lost 4-0 by England.
But now stokes has earned the right for the controversy that lasted almost two years, and which could so easily have engulfed him, to be consigned to history. Everything now should be about his reinstatement as England’s talisman and Test vice-captain.
For what the 28-year-old has done this year, both on that unforgettable sunday at Lord’s in the World Cup final just six weeks ago and an equally unforgettable sabbath in Leeds to ignite the Ashes, really does mark him out as a true England great.
if the summer of 1981 was all about sir ian Botham and the magical 2005 Ashes belonged to
Andrew Flintoff then this year, both with white ball and red, will be remembered as the summer when stokes secured his place in the pantheon alongside both.
And, while stokes has some way to go to surpass the sheer aweinspiring ability of Botham, he can be considered a superior cricketer to Flintoff, certainly with the bat. Especially if he inspires England to a momentous double this year.
The great man Botham, commentating for sky on sunday as stokes surpassed even his legendary achievements on this famous old headingley ground, has no doubts that we are now in the presence of cricketing greatness.
‘You have to remember Ben is the special one because he is capable of so many things,’ said Botham yesterday. ‘he’s growing into a bigger and better cricketer every day and what happened at headingley was box office. he didn’t have anything to lose and enjoyed himself. That’s the key. he was determined but he enjoyed the moment and that will knock the stuffing out of the Aussies now.’
The longer-term hope is that stokes can not only inspire that new generation of cricket fans the ECB are so desperate to attract but also turn them on to 50-over cricket and, most importantly, the ultimate form of the game — Test cricket. Frankly, who needs The hundred when new enthusiasts can watch this? ‘Over the next few weeks when you go past village greens you will see people playing cricket rather than football,’ said the man who inspired a generation during the 1981 Ashes. ‘That’s the effect it has. This was special. To keep his concentration and then destroy Australia single-handedly when they threw everything at him. it’s all started to come together for Ben now and he’ll be wanted all over the world.’
how stokes’s career evolves will be fascinating. he is clearly capable of batting at three for England in Tests and while he is a little inferior with the ball to both Botham and Flintoff his bowling should not be underestimated.
Take, for instance, that incredible spell of 14 unbroken overs on Friday that did so much to keep England in the Test after their implosion for what we thought was an Ashes-defining 67 all out.
stokes admits he needs time to adjust to batting if he has had a long bowl so Joe Root will have to handle the man he backed so passionately, even during his Bristol-induced absence, very carefully. For now No5 and fourth seamer seem perfect for him. Yet
So what’s your favourite sport? In this job, you lose count of the times you get asked that question. And most who broach the subject probably feel they know the answer anyway. You’re going to say football. And I love football.
Always different, always the same, as John Peel said of The Fall. But I love rugby, too; and hockey; and baseball; and a good fight. I love anything done well. I even got carried away by the weightlifting at the olympic Games, once.
Yet none of it matches Test cricket — or let me rephrase that. None of it is Test cricket on the final day, perhaps the final session, when the best part of your week has been invested in the match. Nothing is Headingley 2019, or Adelaide 2010, or Edgbaston 2005; or even Karachi in 2000.
Let me tell you about Karachi, because it explains a lot. I was the chief sports writer of the Daily Express, not long appointed, and flew out hoping to secure an interview with England’s captain, Nasser Hussain. He wouldn’t do it. He was a miserable beggar back then, much nicer now.
Also, the series was tied after two draws, so it was all on the last. Pakistan amassed a first innings total of 405 and, on the second day, England got in and Mike Atherton began to bat. And bat. And bat. He was 43 not out at the close, with Hussain, who was playing slightly more slowly than milk turns.
Michael Henderson, a brilliant cricket correspondent for the Daily Telegraph among others, knew Atherton well enough to make a rather surprising intervention. He drafted a letter which he poked underneath Atherton’s door at England’s hotel.
IT announced that as Saturday was Henderson’s day off, he intended visiting Karachi’s market place that morning in search of rugs. He would, however, be taking his seat in the press box after lunch and if Atherton was still batting, and batting in the manner with which he made his overnight 43, he would stand and loudly boo him from the front of the stand all afternoon.
There hadn’t been many at the National Stadium that week. Any expressions of discontent would most definitely be heard.
The reaction to this ultimatum was a calling of bluff. Not only did Atherton not change pace, Hussain got slower. Atherton’s 50 took three hours and two minutes; Hussain’s four hours and 17 minutes. By close, England had put on a further 198 runs. Nobody had the will to even boo. This was going to finish the dullest of draws.
one correspondent had to fly home prematurely for family reasons and no substitute was being sent in his place. The chap from a Sunday newspaper baled to return home for the office Christmas party.
At the end of a stupefying day four, I didn’t have a clue what to write. The cricket correspondent would record the contest, such as it was. My job was to find a theme, a talking point. There were none.
There was an available flight, mid-morning on the last day. I took a quick vox pop of colleagues. Any chance of a result? Any chance of a turnaround? To a man, the finest observers of the game counselled to save myself. Nothing would happen in Karachi on day five.
I stayed; because, well, you never know. And at lunch, as the game inched towards its inexorable conclusion, there was great fun at my expense. I could have broken out. I could have been on my way.
Instead I was here watching — hold on, what am I watching?
For in those final hours, the most astonishing thing happened. From this morass of mundanity, the game shifted.
There was a faint chance England might win. Ashley Giles and Darren Gough skittled Pakistan, and England were set 176 at a rate of four per over, given the time remaining.
Pakistan then went on a match-throttling go-slow. Saqlain Mushtaq took eight minutes to bowl one over; Waqar Younis took four minutes to arrange the field. The hero of the hour was referee ranjan Madugalle, who used the tea break to pointedly inform Pakistan captain Moin Khan that these overs would be completed, whatever.
By the end, Pakistan fielders were complaining they could not see the ball as Graham Thorpe knocked off the winning runs in near darkness. It was the type of light you only played in as a kid in the back garden.
Another five minutes and they would have had to suspend play. And, against this gloomy pressure, England won their first series in Pakistan for 39 years.
NATurALLY, Atherton’s 125 across nine hours and 39 minutes earned him man of the match. It was compelling and thrilling. It was one of the greatest things I have ever seen on a sports field.
Why? Because, by then, so much was invested in it. Just as so much was invested at Headingley, in 2019 or 1981, or whenever a Test match reaches a see-saw conclusion. There are so many moments when a game has ebbed and flowed in any one of three directions, so many nuances, passages of utter tedium, followed by sparks of wonderful life. one
might think a particular session holds the key to the entire game, only to discover a red herring.
Who would have imagined, for instance, that Friday morning and England’s 67 all out would not be the most significant phase of play this week? Who would have thought that Jofra Archer’s 6-45 would not be the highlight of England’s performance?
over five days, Test cricket has so many more opportunities to confound, wrong-foot and surprise. It is a team sport that places enormous pressure on individuals. Football analysts talk of players ‘hiding’. There is nowhere to hide in cricket. Nowhere to hide even for the greatest Test batsman in the world, Steve Smith, nowhere to hide when tossed the ball against Ben Stokes.
Cricket rewards the strictest technique, yet also the most maverick flair; it has elements of grace and beauty but also shocking, visceral danger. It delights in gentleness and guile, yet also energy and brute force. And those who play it, love it, too.
Even in numbing defeat on Sunday, there was a sense that Australia’s players knew they were 50 per cent of one of the greatest matches the sport had witnessed. That bowling out England for 67 was a feat, and one that raised Stokes’ achievement, and therefore the narrative.
Players invest in the Test arena, too. The white ball game, the Cricket World Cup, can be wonderful, but it can never match the concentration demanded as the long form unfolds.
Maybe, with football, familiarity breeds contempt. There is so much of it and, at elite level, so much that is good that we are almost full.
ToTTENHAM beat Ajax in the final minute of a Champions League semi-final and it was the greatest comeback since, well, the night before when Liverpool pulled back a 3-0 deficit against Barcelona, winning 4-0.
Then, from a personal perspective, there are deadlines. Most of the greatest memories — Andy Murray’s first Wimbledon win, Stokes at Headingley, the coxless fours edging out Canada by eight hundredths of a second in Athens — have time on their side.
Football has Lionel Messi and Cristiano ronaldo and Leicester and the Nou Camp in 1999, but it is also fraught with late kick-offs and frantic rewrites. Too busy reporting it to watch it is not a joke. I was present for the Miracle of Medinah in the ryder Cup, which took place approaching midnight uK time. one day, it would be nice to discover what the hell happened there.
Test cricket is different. It can be breathed in, consumed luxuriously over the best part of a week. So when, after all that time, it boils down to one session, or one over, or one wicket or — as on Sunday — one man, the painstaking progress to that point makes it all the more exhilarating.
So, in answer to the question, my favourite sport is Test cricket. Some people think it’s boring. And it is, sometimes. But that’s sort of the point, too.