The new mature Stokes is perfect man for a crisis

Fracas nearly ended his career but it inspired England’s centurion to grow, says Tim Wigmore

Aweek shy of two years ago, Ben Stokes made 100 against the West Indies at Leeds. It was his sixth Test century and second of the summer, and seemed like the latest confirmation of his development into a Test batsman – not just all-rounder – of high class.

Not for a moment would Stokes have imagined what lay ahead before his seventh Test hundred – his next, indeed, in any form of cricket. Since that century against West Indies, Stokes has got married and won the World Cup. He has also come through the incident in Bristol, in the early hours of Sept 25, 2017, and an aftermath that lasted nearly a year.

It may seem remiss to bring up Bristol here, in the hour of Stokes hitting a magnificent Ashes hundred at Lord’s. But the Stokes who scored his seventh Test hundred did so as a profoundly different cricketer, and man, to the one who scored his sixth.

“It sounds silly but, could Bristol have been the best thing that could have happened to me? Who knows. But maybe in terms of my way of thinking,” Stokes told Espncricinfo this year. “Thinking all this is going to be taken away from me might be the thing that has changed the way I do things.”

Stokes’s training has reached new levels of intensity as he has become far fitter; Eoin Morgan, his one-day international captain, has even had to tell him to train less hard.

Stokes reclaiming the England vice-captaincy, from which he had been sacked after Bristol, reflected his new more sombre – and sober – spirit. Yet the change is most obvious in his batting. Before Bristol, his batting was infused with a buccaneering spirit, a zest for counter-attack and an utter disdain for the reputations of the bowlers he faced, distilled in his audacious

120 at Perth in just his second Test.

That century against the West Indies, off Stokes’s 122nd ball, was in that spirit.

Now, responsibility is the hallmark of his batting. In an antidote to the “that’s just the way I play” orthodoxy that permeates

much of the England team, Stokes took 187 balls over 62 runs against India at Trent Bridge last year, when trying to save a Test.

During the World Cup, he was more adept than any at adapting when conditions demanded a divergence from the favoured strategy, above all in the final.

Until he returned to the side early last year, Stokes had a strike rate of 99 in ODIS and 64 in Tests. In the 18 months since it is 87 in ODIS and 48 in Tests.

As he entered the crease in the second innings at Lord’s, promoted from six to five, he needed all this refined judgment and defensive discipline. England were 64 for three – soon 71 for four – a position scarcely buttressed by their first-innings lead of eight. Continue their collapse, and England stood effectively to lose the Ashes.

And so, against Pat Cummins’s ferocity and Nathan Lyon’s turn, this situation demanded all his resolve. He had luck too, with Australia not referring an lbw decision on seven. By the close of play he had eked out 16 from 41 balls. With England’s position still in peril in the morning, he took 106 balls to reach 50.

Then, having shown the best of the new Stokes, he married it with the best of the old Stokes. Stoicism was replaced by swagger; from playing attacking shots to 20 per cent of balls before lunch, he attacked 49 per cent of balls thereafter.

A clip off Lyon brought up his century. The celebration, inward-focused, rather than exuberant, was in keeping with the new Stokes too.

A few minutes later, after a few imperious blows off Peter Siddle, England declared. Stokes bounced up the steps, his thoughts now on how England could pull off an extraordinary win. But, as he ran through the Long Room, you hoped he gave himself a few seconds to soak in his innings, and all that had gone into it.