ENGLAND PINNING HOPES ON BIG BEN’S RECOVERY
The grimace on the face of England’s talisman was bad enough. The expression into which Andrew Strauss’ features would have formed must have been just as anxious, not least because he has seen this kind of thing before.
Ultimately, even though he probably reasoned he had as much chance of stopping Ben Stokes from signing up for the Indian Premier League riches as persuading him to take up flower-arranging, it was Strauss who, as director of England cricket, had given his permission for England’s all-rounder to stay in India with Rising Pune Supergiant for as long as he did and, by extension, to play as often as he did.
It was Strauss whose heart probably missed a beat when Stokes was forced out for ten days at the start of that tournament with a shoulder injury. And it is Strauss who, right or wrong, will have to front up for questioning should the worst case develop and, due to injury caused by overuse, England find themselves unable to pick arguably the best all-rounder in world cricket and without question the most influential member of their team, without whom their status as pre-ICC Champions Trophy favourites would be seriously compromised.
When, two balls into his spell in the first ODI against South Africa at Headingley, Stokes began flexing his left knee, it was immediately apparent something was not right. The sight of him taking pills from the team doctor on the boundary, and then airing his frustration as he finally conceded he had to leave the field, was worse.
And though he returned and ran about without further alarms as England completed their otherwise morale-boosting victory in the first ODI against South Africa at Headingley, the very fact that his captain Eoin Morgan admitted afterwards he was not prepared to risk bowling him again underlined the fact that risk was the operative word.
With Stokes due to be assessed further this morning, Strauss and England will be hoping that first impressions were misleading; that, even if Stokes has to miss one or both of the remaining matches against South Africa, he will still be fit for the opening match of the main event of the summer, against Bangladesh at The Oval on Thursday, and for the rest of the tournament. But what if they weren’t? It goes without saying that England would miss Stokes’ runs and wickets, catches and all-action fielding.
Without him the balance of the side would be completely altered. Where his
It is Stokes’ standing as a talisman that England would miss the most; knowing they are driven by one of the game’s strongest forces
presence allows England to field two spinners in Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, with Joe Root as back-up, his absence would force them to choose between an extra specialist batsman, Jonny Bairstow, or a specialist bowler, either David Willey or Jake Ball, neither, clearly, what they had in mind as ‘Plan A’.
But it is his standing as the talisman of the team that they would miss most, the confidence of knowing that their efforts are driven by one of the game’s strongest forces; not only a competitor to his core, but a winner, too.
Stokes returned from the IPL with two messages; first, that the experience had made him a better player and second, that his coach Stephen Fleming had told him he was training too hard.
England’s batting coach, Graham Thorpe, will vouch for that. Former England skipper Nasser Hussain has reported that, on occasions, Stokes will mark the end of an hour in the nets by asking for “just another 100 balls”.
If it were down to him, Stokes would play all day every day because playing cricket is his drug of choice and history has taught him to make the most of it while he can. There’s the history of Andrew Flintoff, for example, who, back in 2009, took medical advice to call time on his international career due to cartilage damage to his left knee sustained in that year’s IPL.
That, of course, was only the last of a string of injuries suffered by England’s last talisman, but his captain at the time will remember it all too clearly. And when Strauss reflects on those memories, for Stokes’ sake and England’s, one hopes he will take all necessary steps to avoid any possible repetition.
No wonder England skipper Eoin Morgan beckoned Moeen Ali to lead his side from the field at the end of their convincing win over South Africa at Headingley.
Pundits were split over which of them was more deserving of the man of the match award, but Morgan had clearly made up his mind and the judges duly agreed.
Morgan had come in for criticism for insisting Moeen should regain his place in the starting XI ahead of Jonny Bairstow. After all, in Moeen’s absence, the Test ‘keeper had batted brilliantly against Ireland at Lord’s and, which might have been just as significant, the first of this three-match series was at Headingley, home of the red-haired Yorkshire terrier.
When, after coming to the crease to join Morgan at 198 for five, Moeen stumbled to 12 from 20 balls, you could sense the growing murmur among the Leeds crowd that he might be wasting the batting place their man should have been filling.
Yet this was the moment Moeen chose to cut loose, capitalising on left-arm paceman Wayne Parnell’s tactical blunder in going around the wicket to him to launch him over mid-wicket for the first of his five sixes.
By the time Moeen had hit Imran Tahir, the number one ranked ODI bowler in world cricket for three more in an over to spring to his half-century, even Bairstow’s staunchest supporters were lapping it up and when he ended the innings by flicking Chris Morris over deep-backward square for six, the crowd rose to him as one.
The South Africans looked shellshocked, and any hopes they had of chasing 340 to win evaporated in the instant AB de Villiers hoiked Moeen’s off-spin to Liam Plunkett at deep midwicket.
“Vindication of your selection policy, I guess?” Mike Atherton put to Morgan at the presentation ceremony.
“You know what,” Morgan laughed, “even if he hadn’t got any runs or had a bad day I’d probably pick him again. I have that much confidence in the guy.
“He’s made some huge contributions to us over the last couple of years. The fact that he missed the Ireland games and has come back in and produced a performance like this sums him up as a character.”
And, with that, he breathed out.