STOKES IS IN CRUISE CONTROL

Ben tames fearsome pacemen — before walloping three sixes

After Ben Stokes ransacked his way to 258 off 198 balls at Cape town’s Newlands in January 2016, he suggested he might never play that way again.

At the time, his honesty sounded deflating, as if pyrotechnics come round once in a lifetime and there was nothing he could do about it. But the admission contained a deeper truth: Stokes always was more than a biffer. It’s just not everyone believed it.

Across the first two days at the Oval, he has underlined the point in an innings that, for the most part, was to Cape town what chalk is to cheddar. the skies heaved, the pitch nibbledbbled and South Africa’sa’s cordon twitched inn anticipation. It wass high-stakes cricket, as grudging as it was gripping.

Until he channelled his inner Newlands by moving from 91 too 109 in three balls,ls, Stokes treated the whole thing like a chance tot showh off the other side of his game.

the timing was spot on. two days before this game, Stokes had spoken of his irritation with Michael Vaughan’s suggestion that england’s batting had not shown test cricket enough respect at trent Bridge. And so he set about showing it all the respect in the world.

He had come in before tea on thursday at 120 for four, with the series in the balance.

When he was last man out roughly 24 hours later, heaving Morne Morkel to long-off, england had 353 — above par for the conditions — and a spring in their step. It would scarcely leave them for the whole day.

there is a case for saying this was the most complete of his five test hundreds, and Stokes said it was his hardest earned.

It brought memories of rajkot in November when, in conditions which might have flummoxed even his Cape town persona, Stokes made 128 in almost five hours against an Indian attack including the spin menace of ravichandran Ashwin and ravindra Jadeja. Next came 70 in almost four hours at Visakhapatnam, whiwhich confirmed two ththings: rajkot was no flfluke, and Stokes has a real cricket brain. It was all on show here at the Oval — grey mmatter revealing iitself on a grey day. He began it by babatting out of his creacrease against the lethal Vernon Philander, countering his seam movement and whipping him for an early four to settle english nerves.

then, after the dismissal of Alastair Cook raised South African spirits, he upped the tempo with Jonny Bairstow. three times in one over Stokes deposited Chris Morris to the boundary, only for the wickets of Bairstow and Moeen Ali to signal another change of tack.

Stokes went on the defensive — so much so that by the time he glanced Morris to fine leg 10 overs after the interval, it was his first boundary in 59 balls. In an eighth-wicket partnership of 37, toby roland- Jones made 25. this was Stokes the responsible, the kind you’d take home to meet your parents. But, with partners disappearing, he decided to go full Cape town, slog- sweeping Keshav Maharaj for six towards the gas holders.

Stuart Broad was out moments later, handing No 11 James Anderson the responsibility of seeing Stokes to three figures. And what followed was the kind of box- office cricket the Oval’s 100th men’s test had demanded.

‘Jimmy asked, “What are you going to do?” ’ said Stokes. ‘I just said, “Wallop it”. We were nine down and there was a seamer at the other end. the wind was blowing in my favour — so I thought it was the best chance to get as many runs as I could.’

He launched the second ball of Maharaj’s next over to long-on, where faf du Plessis held the catch but could not stop himself tumbling back on to the boundary advertising foam.

Of the next two sixes there was little doubt — the first straighter to bring up his hundred, the second squarer to crown it. Not since Wally Hammond 84 years earlier had an england player hit three sixes in a row — but then, even on his quiet days, Stokes knows how to grab a headline.

In truth, it was an innings he needed. His last 11 test innings yielded a solitary half- century and his test average of 34 remains that of an all-rounder rather than a bona fide No 6.

But as South Africa careered to 61 for seven, Stokes’s 112 assumed a whole new dimension.

this wasn’t quite the day Ben Stokes grew up; that had already happened. But it was the day he reinforced his stature as the most adaptable of all-rounders. there is another innings in the Oval’s pantheon.