SUPER STOKES TEARS INTO INDIA
Fearless England win as big Ben combines with brutal Bairstow
Ben StokeS raised an apologetic hand to the skies, bent the middle finger of his left hand and shook his head. the gesture was for his late father, Ged, who died in December and once had an amputation at the knuckle to prolong his rugby career.
But there was nothing to be sorry about. Stokes had just fallen for a 52-ball 99 of such simple brutality that Stuart Broad, commentating back in London, likened his innings to a computer game.
His dismissal triggered a brief wobble to bring back memories of the england collapse in tuesday’s first game. But so violent was Stokes’s hitting — he thrashed 10 sixes in all, and moved from 50 to 99 in 11 deliveries — that Jonny Bairstow’s superb 124 from 112 felt almost pedestrian.
As for Bairstow’s stand of 110 inside 17 overs with Jason Roy — the openers’ 13th century partnership — that seemed a distant memory. not for the first time, Stokes stole the show.
It meant england squared this three-match series in spectacular style, knocking off a huge target with six wickets and 39 balls to spare, and guaranteeing their no 1 oDI ranking for a little while yet. If they win tomorrow, they can finish an exhausting trip on a high.
Victory looked unlikely after a century from kL Rahul and a typically destructive 77 off 40 balls from Rishabh Pant had lifted India to 336 for six. But it was significant on several fronts.
Most importantly, england thrived without several of the usual suspects. eoin Morgan and Joe Root, the two leading centurymakers in their oDI history, were missing. So were Jofra Archer and Mark Wood, their two fastest bowlers. then there was the injured Sam Billings, the rested Chris Woakes and the exiled Alex Hales. to see Lancashire’s Liam Livingstone finish off with a flourish on his one-day debut was to glimpse the white-ball depths in english cricket. they will need it all if they are to defend their 50-over title in two years’ time.
Livingstone’s cameo underlined another point, made by Morgan after england had unravelled in the first game. Play sensibly, by all means — but never forget the aggression that won the World Cup in the first place. After three wickets fell in nine balls, including stand-in captain Jos Buttler for a duck, Livingstone took successive sixes off Bhuvneshwar kumar. Another name is in the mix.
Stokes, meanwhile, did more than provide the latest reminder of his talents. the t20 World Cup begins in India in october, and this looked like an unanswerable case for the no 3 position.
the role currently belongs to Dawid Malan, but his batting against spin during the recent 20-over series was unconvincing. Stokes was less hesitant. thanks to his onslaught, India’s two slow left-armers — kuldeep Yadav and krunal Pandya — were left nursing collective figures of 16-0-156-0.
the contrast with england’s slow bowlers was telling. Moeen Ali has had an almost non- existent winter, thanks to Covid- 19, rest and rotation — and some unsympathetic selection. But he conceded only 47 in his 10 overs, hurrying through the middle of the innings with Adil Rashid as India stuck to their policy of building slowly, then exploding later.
If england wanted evidence ahead of the World Cup that Ali can be a white-ball force in this part of the world, this was it.
Buttler was also grateful for some clever death bowling from Reece topley, the tall left-armer who made his international comeback last summer after a long lay- off from injury. With India on course for 350, he conceded just four in the 48th over, when Hardik Pandya was wreaking havoc, and nine in the 50th.
Despite that, India still managed 126 from their last 10, with tom Curran in particular taking a battering. tours allow the management to learn plenty — good and bad — about their players, and Curran’s overall return in both white-ball formats in South Africa and India this winter now reads four for 288 from 32 overs. the 83 he conceded here was a personal nadir.
this, though, did not seem like the time to quibble. Instead, it felt like a return to the salad days before and during the summer of 2019, when england flayed all before them.
Astonishingly, they had never chased more than 266 to beat India, way back in 1974, but Roy got them going with a boundarystudded half- century, before he was run out by Rohit Sharma’s sharp work at short midwicket.
Stokes might have been run out too after he dawdled over a two. Perhaps concerned he might be struck by Yadav’s throw from the deep, he reached tentatively for the crease, just as the ball hit the stumps.
Replays suggested no part of his bat was behind the line, but tV umpire Anil Chaudhary said he could not be sure.
on 32 at the time, Stokes cashed in on the reprieve. When Bairstow reached his 11th one-day hundred, he had 39. By the time Stokes was out for 99, gloving a pull down the leg side off Bhuvneshwar, Bairstow had 123. they hit 17 sixes between them, and added 175 in 19 overs of unadulterated mayhem.
It was the equal of anything this team managed on the way to becoming world champions. And it may encourage them to reflect on a simple truth: what has been done once can be done again.