The Ashes: the greatest Test innings in history
“There has never been anything like this,” said Paul Newman in the Daily Mail. Not Ian Botham’s 149 at Headingley in the 1981 Ashes; not even the famous win at Edgbaston in 2005. England’s victory on Sunday – the “second miracle of Headingley” – was better than either of those. After their first innings, when they scored a paltry 67 runs, their hopes of winning the third Test – and winning the Ashes – looked “dead and buried”. Defeat would have ensured that Australia retained the trophy. But Ben Stokes had other ideas. In the second innings, teammate after teammate fell, but the 28-year-old all-rounder was still there. And he was there until the very end, when he smashed a four, to seal a barely believable win. Six weeks earlier, in the World Cup final, Stokes had inspired England to “the most tumultuous of victories”. Somehow, this match “topped it”: his 135 was surely the greatest Test innings of all time.
“Stokes has carried England’s batting all summer,” said Steve James in The Times. He kept rescuing them in the World Cup; he was at it again in the second Test, when he scored 115 not out. But this was “the ultimate act of burden-carrying”. It proved, beyond doubt, that Stokes is “one of the strongest cricketers – both physically and mentally – that has ever played the game”. Everything seemed to be working against Stokes, said Mark Nicholas on ESPN cricinfo. Australia’s pace bowlers are deadly. “The pitch was tricky.” And then there was the expectation: “the whole damn country was watching” and Stokes knew it. But his gift is “the belief that anything is possible if he stays in”.
Stokes started his second innings remarkably slowly, said Andy Bull in The Guardian. He took just two runs from his first 50 balls. It wasn’t until the 83rd ball that he hit double figures – “no Englishman had taken longer” to get there in 26 years. But as the innings wore on, he ramped it up. When Jack Leach, the final batsman, arrived, England still needed another 73 runs to win; “everyone else had given up hope”. But not Stokes: that was the moment he found another gear. He hit four fours and seven sixes – one of them an outrageous reverse-sweep. And when he reached his century, he didn’t even stop to acknowledge it. By the end of that 76-run stand with Leach, he had scored 74 off 45 balls; Leach managed just one run.
As a batsman, Stokes has always “had the shots”, said Nick Hoult in The Daily Telegraph. What he used to lack, however, was “shot selection at the right time”. Now, having spent hours working on his defence, he is playing with “great application”: he has become a more mature player, capable of “picking the time to attack”. And it wasn’t just Stokes’s batting that won this game, said Mike Atherton in The Times. On the second day, when Australia appeared to be building a “match-winning lead”, he took two crucial wickets. With the ball as well as the bat, he “kept his team afloat when they looked like sinking”. But we shouldn’t overlook Leach’s “indispensable” role, said Tim Wigmore in The Daily Telegraph. He is in this Test side because of his bowling rather than his batting; “thousands of cricketers up and down the land” are better batsmen. Yet somehow, he survived for an hour at the crease. Without his meticulousness, “there could have been no Stokes madness”.
How on earth will Australia recover from this, asked Geoff Lemon in The Guardian. “The only worse cricketing humiliation than being bowled out for 67 must be losing to a team that you bowled out for 67.” On just three previous occasions in Test history have a team won after recording such a low score – and “all of those cases were in the 1800s”. Now they must bounce back in time for the start of the fourth Test next Wednesday. “After being taken apart, it is up to Australia to keep themselves together.”