Into the ring the Aussie bowlers climbed, and out they went, laid flat by Stokes’ mighty blows
There came a moment, in Josh hazlewood’s 31st over, when it no longer mattered how, or where, he bowled to Ben Stokes. Australian cricketers were no longer in control of their destiny, or even their little world.
Nothing was big enough to contain Stokes. Not headingley, not the Ashes.
he was busting out of it all, expanding, bigger and bigger, bolder and bolder.
he was a giant, spinning the planet with his foot, his bat producing mighty claps of thunder.
At the other end, Jack Leach. Bless him, on several occasions there were brief delays because his glasses had steamed up.
Only cricket can do this, the wonderful juxtaposition, this partnership of all the talents.
Gods and mortals. Yet Leach was there with Stokes every inch of the way as england closed down on arguably the most extraordinary Test victory in history.
It was 1888 when a Test team last made a first-innings score of less than 67 and won.
Indeed, the only three occasions this has happened in all Test cricket are from that decade.
Australia at The Oval in 1882, england in Sydney 1887, Australia at Lord’s 1888.
It was a different game back then. Test scores were different, too.
An innings of the type Stoke played yesterday could not be imagined — and we can only marvel that the same could have been said at around 3pm yesterday.
ENGLANd were done, the Ashes were over as Stuart Broad became Australia’s ninth second-innings victim. It was going to be an afternoon of if onlys and what might have beens. really, what did we think? That england could bat seriously for three sessions and it would be enough? Series levelled, Australia demoralised, on to Old Trafford for round four.
england were quite plainly a single additional session of reasonable competence short. had Joe root not gone down the wicket to Nathan Lyon, had Jonny Bairstow batted after lunch as he did in the morning, had Jos Buttler not fallen victim to a calamitous run-out, had Jofra Archer been prepared to play more of a supporting role, less of a cameo — if only, if only, if only.
Yet Stokes was in no mood for regrets. Stokes was in the here and now. he just needed a running mate. he just needed someone to hold his end up. And he found that man in Leach, nought not out when england’s tenth-wicket partnership reached 50, adding one to his personal total, the run that tied the scores no less, by the time the match was won. he faced 17 balls, was a minute short of the hour before he scored — but what a partner. Leach saw out one ball, on the odd occasion two, at the end of the overs, he ran intelligently bar one aberration, he caused Stokes no trouble at all. And he was rewarded with the finest view in the house. he was looking straight down the wicket as Stokes wrought mental disintegration on Australia across a sensational five-and-ahalf-hour knock, his every clubbed boundary messing with their minds until the team became a bad ideas factory, producing one after the other, a jumble of appalling reviews, fumbled run-outs and shelled catches. It would be unfair to blame the bowlers because, by then, Stokes was playing his own game and they were merely his facilitators. he scooped them away over the wicketkeeper T20 style, he switch-hit them for six off his toes, he bent and shaped the deliveries to his will, took two if he fancied, nicked the strike when necessary.
he was so confident, so utterly certain of his destiny in this contest that it was possible to forget he was doing it all without a safety net. One mistake, one misjudgment, and england were done. Not just the Test, but the Ashes, which would be retained by Australia with victory here. Stokes was the last man standing against that pressure, if man he is.
Where does this stand as a Test innings? Simply, the best. It had luck, it was more white than red in its ultimate execution, but in the circumstances, and with such little support, it is hard to recall anything quite like it.
Not least because — much like Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon
A Time In Hollywood — while the bloody end will be remembered, what preceded it was, by his standards, subtle and understated.
Stokes began exceptionally slowly, scoring two runs from his first 50 balls.
his innings moved through three distinct phases.
Conservative and cautious with root, lively and challenging, taking the new ball on with Bairstow and then the orgy of ironically feelgood violence at the close.
The performance it will be compared to, naturally, is that played by Sir Ian Botham, on this ground in 1981.
Yet while Botham made a higher score, the tail-ender keeping him company in exceptional circumstances was Graham dilley, a very capable lower order batsman, who chipped in with 56. Leach contributed a single.
This run chase, then, was the work of Stokes alone, reshaping cricket as an individual sport. he stood there surveying his opponents like a fairground prizefighter promising to lick any man in the place.
Into the ring they climbed, all those Australian bowlers who had struck such terror into england on Friday, and out they went, laid flat by Stokes’ mighty blows. he bludgeoned hazlewood out of the attack — four, six, six, two, one — 19 off the over, like this was the IPL.
each blow brought roars of approval from a well-refreshed Western Terrace and when Stokes hit the winning boundary just before tea — well, it was Boxpark Croydon during the 2018 World Cup, all beer showers and jubilant stickiness. Stokes gave them a day
they will remember their whole lives.
As Australia will, too. We have heard much about momentum in this series, and some of it has been pure bunkum. England had mighty momentum after that final day at Lord’s and parlayed it into one of their worst Test scores in history. Yet Stokes has left a mark on Australia here.
Tim Paine looked befuddled as a captain as his impregnable lead dwindled.
He called a review that was a victory for chuckleheaded optimism, meaning when Lyon had Stokes plumb lbw with two to win and it was not given, Australia had burned through their lifeline options. There were no friends to phone. And some might say that means England got lucky; but Stokes was making his own luck, his own rules, by then. He had Australia, the Ashes, the game, the sport, in the palm of his hand, playing with it, pushing it around, seeing what could be done. There is no cricketer in the world like him when he plays in this way, and no cricketer who can match what he brings to his team. He was, obviously, the man of the match, but for his ferocious 14-over bowling spell on Friday night, too — the beginning of England’s remarkable fightback. Now to Old Trafford next month. Australia have Steve Smith back, and England have to find a way to remove him if they are to build on this. Yet now the visitors have reason to be fearful, too. While Stokes remains, nothing is won, nothing is lost. He decides. This is his world, and on days like this, the rest of cricket just lives in it.